Chapter — War Drafts What Remains
The second punch broke every bone again.
This time Eris knew what was happening.
That made it worse.
She felt the crude bridges Counterdoctrine had built fail first.
The new bone was ugly.
Functional.
Young.
Discordia pulverized it.
Then the older fractures reopened beneath it.
Her spine failed.
Her pelvis separated.
Both legs folded.
Her right arm snapped across Discordia's fist.
Eris's scream broke into a wet gasp when her ribs collapsed inward.
She struck the ground.
Discordia turned away again.
Toward Veydras.
Eris lay behind her.
For several seconds, she could only cry.
No words.
Just tears and tiny involuntary sounds each time breathing moved something that should not move.
Veydras stepped forward.
"Noctis."
"I know."
"No."
Veydras pulled his shoulder free.
"You don't."
His covered hands were shaking.
Noctis had known Veydras longer than most civilizations had known their own names.
He had seen him angry.
This was different.
Veydras looked at Discordia as though he had finally found an object worthy of everything his hands had done to the people he loved.
Behind her—
bone moved.
Veydras closed his eyes.
"No."
Eris screamed again.
Counterdoctrine had started rebuilding.
Discordia looked over her shoulder.
Not surprised.
Interested.
Eris's right femur shifted beneath the skin.
A new bridge formed across it.
The angle was worse than before.
Her left shoulder hardened where it had collapsed.
Three fingers fused partially together before War corrected enough tissue to separate them into something usable.
Eris sobbed.
"Stop…"
Counterdoctrine continued.
"Stop."
BELLIGERENT FUNCTION BELOW MINIMUM.
"Please."
ADAPTATION REQUIRED.
Eris screamed as her spine took weight.
War did not need its god comfortable.
War needed its god combat-capable.
Veydras understood that before Eris did.
His face went pale.
"It won't let her stay down."
Lethica's apple stopped halfway to his mouth.
"No."
Eris heard him.
Her eye found his.
"Fix it."
Lethica looked at her.
She cried harder.
"You fix everything."
"No."
The answer came softly.
Eris stared.
Lethica lowered the apple.
"That is hers."
Eris hated him.
For that moment—
she hated him more than Discordia.
Then her right foot accepted weight.
She stood again.
Discordia turned toward her.
Eris wiped her face with a shaking hand.
"Again?"
Discordia stared.
Eris's breathing hitched.
She laughed once despite herself.
"Of course."
Discordia moved.
Battle Omniscience opened.
Eris flinched.
Every answer arrived.
She trusted none of them.
LEFT.
Eris checked Discordia's hips.
No support.
Rejected.
RIGHT.
Energy allocation contradicted it.
Rejected.
UPPER STRIKE.
No pressure beneath the rear foot.
Rejected.
Battle Omniscience filled with warnings.
Counterdoctrine answered.
CORROBORATION REQUIRED.
COUNTERDOCTRINE: SIGNAL DISCIPLINE.
No prediction would be accepted from a single information channel.
Intent alone was insufficient.
Posture alone was insufficient.
Energy alone was insufficient.
Every conclusion required independent battlefield evidence.
Eris threw away omniscience.
And became merely one of the greatest fighters who had ever existed.
Discordia's fist came high.
Eris saw the shoulder.
Saw the foot.
Saw the contraction through the abdomen.
Three signals.
Real.
She slipped outside.
The fist passed her cheek.
For the first time—
Discordia missed.
Eris struck the elbow.
Discordia's arm bent.
Eris pivoted on her malformed right leg, nearly screamed, and drove her palm beneath Discordia's jaw.
Contact.
The Theater shook.
Discordia's head snapped backward.
Eris followed with a knee.
Discordia caught it.
Eris was ready.
Her right hand came down across Discordia's wrist.
War reached something her ordinary flesh should not have been able to touch.
Not the whole of Discordia.
Not whatever primordial existence had preceded the concept.
The hostile interface.
The part participating in the war.
A rule surfaced beneath Counterdoctrine.
Not new.
Older than the fight with Karma.
Eris understood it now because Discordia forced her to.
A WAR REQUIRES MUTUAL INTERACTION.
BELLIGERENTS RECOGNIZED.
INTERACTION GRANTED.
Conceptual pressure gathered around Eris's fingers.
Discordia looked down.
Eris twisted.
The grip broke.
She drove her right elbow across Discordia's mouth.
Blood appeared.
One red line.
Tiny.
Real.
The Theater went silent.
Veydras's eyes widened.
Noctis whispered, "She hurt her."
Discordia touched her lip.
Looked at the blood.
Something moved behind her eyes.
Memory.
Not enough to become history.
Enough to become familiarity.
Eris saw it.
"You remember bleeding?"
Discordia looked at her.
Eris raised both fists.
One trembled.
The other barely closed.
"Good."
Discordia wiped the blood away.
Eris's smile had no humor in it.
"I can work with familiar."
Discordia attacked.
Eris stepped inside.
She read the foot.
Ignored the first prediction.
Read the hip.
Ignored the second.
Saw the shoulder commit.
Moved.
Discordia changed direction.
No transition.
Eris's eye widened.
The shoulder that had committed left became the beginning of a right strike without crossing the movement between them.
Not teleportation.
Not speed.
The relationship between commitment and consequence had changed.
Eris ducked anyway.
The fist clipped her hair.
She struck Discordia's ribs.
Discordia stepped backward.
Eris followed.
Right fist.
Palm.
Knee.
Shoulder.
Every motion ugly because the bones underneath them were wrong.
Every strike technically precise because War did not care.
Discordia caught the fifth.
Eris changed grips.
Discordia's wrist rotated.
Eris changed again.
For several exchanges, War became visible through a ruined woman.
No wasted movement.
No decorative power.
Every centimeter existed because Eris knew what it was for.
Discordia watched.
Learned.
Then stopped obeying the distinction between an attack and the reason an attack existed.
Eris punched.
Her fist landed.
Discordia's cheek moved.
The hit succeeded.
Eris felt satisfaction.
That satisfaction became information.
Discordia's Chaos touched it.
Battle Omniscience interpreted the completed strike as evidence that the exchange had ended in Eris's favor.
Signal Discipline accepted it.
Multiple channels agreed.
Discordia used the agreement.
The successful punch became the premise of the next contradiction.
If Eris had successfully extended her right shoulder—
then her right shoulder had been extended.
If it was extended—
it was vulnerable.
Discordia occupied that consequence without performing the intermediate counter.
Her hand was suddenly around Eris's upper arm.
Eris froze.
Not because Discordia had moved instantly.
Because the fact that Eris succeeded had become sufficient cause for Discordia already to possess the answer.
Karma had continued events.
Discordia made success produce its own contradiction.
Eris whispered—
"Oh."
Discordia drove her forehead into Eris's face.
Her nose collapsed.
Eris stumbled.
Discordia struck the side of her jaw.
It broke again.
Eris swung blind.
Discordia caught her wrist.
Eris kicked.
Discordia let the kick land.
Then used the completed contact as a valid reason for Eris's supporting leg to have been committed.
She swept it.
Eris fell.
Discordia stamped on her chest.
The ribs Counterdoctrine had repaired exploded beneath the foot.
Eris screamed.
Discordia stepped away.
Eris rolled onto her side.
Blood poured from her mouth.
Discordia started toward Noctis.
Eris's good eye widened.
"No."
She crawled.
Discordia continued.
Eris's fingers dug into the ground.
"NO!"
Counterdoctrine forced another neural route through her right leg.
She stood.
Discordia turned.
Eris reached her.
The third beating began.
This one was slower.
Discordia broke the left knee first.
Eris fell.
Discordia waited.
Counterdoctrine built enough support for her to stand.
Discordia broke the right.
Eris screamed and fell again.
War reinforced it.
She stood.
Discordia broke both wrists.
Eris screamed.
War thickened surviving structures around them.
She stood.
Discordia struck her ribs.
They failed.
Again.
Eris hit the ground.
Again.
Bone formed.
Again.
Eris stood.
Again.
Discordia broke her.
Again.
Eris screamed.
Again.
War rebuilt enough.
Again.
Discordia waited.
That was the part Veydras could not forgive.
She waited.
Discordia could kill her.
Everybody knew that now.
Instead, she allowed Counterdoctrine to finish each emergency adaptation.
She watched Eris reacquire enough function to stand.
Then removed it.
Karma had not commanded victory.
He had specified pace.
Slowly.
Eris understood.
Her scream turned into sobbing.
"You…"
Discordia waited.
Eris dragged herself upward.
"…bitch."
Discordia hit her throat.
Something collapsed.
The scream stopped.
Eris hit the ground with her mouth open.
No sound came out.
Her hands flew toward her neck.
The laryngeal structure beneath her fingers had failed.
Her jaw was broken again.
Air entered.
Air left.
Voice did not.
Eris tried to scream.
Nothing.
Her face changed.
Panic.
Real panic.
She tried again.
A tiny damaged rasp escaped.
Then nothing.
Discordia crouched.
She watched Eris discover silence.
Tears streamed down Eris's face.
Her mouth remained open.
No sound came.
Discordia stood.
Turned toward the others.
Eris reached after her.
Her fingers closed on empty ground.
Veydras could hear her nails scrape against it.
That was all.
Discordia took one step.
Eris forced her knee underneath herself.
Veydras whispered, "Don't."
Eris stood anyway.
No scream accompanied the repair now.
That made it worse.
Her whole body convulsed in silence while Counterdoctrine forced bone into load-bearing shapes.
Tears fell continuously.
Her mouth opened around noises her body could no longer produce.
Then she moved.
Discordia turned.
Eris ducked the first strike.
Signal Discipline worked.
She parried the second.
War granted conceptual contact.
She slipped the third.
Her right fist struck Discordia's ribs.
Once.
Twice.
Discordia moved backward.
Eris chased.
For three seconds, she looked almost like herself.
Then Discordia caught her by the hair.
Eris's eye widened.
Discordia drove her head into the ground.
The black surface cratered.
Eris's skull opened near the side of her head.
She went still.
Veydras stopped breathing.
Blood spread beneath her white and crimson hair.
A section of bone near the temple had broken away.
For one horrible instant, before blood flooded across it, something pale-gray and wet moved beneath the opening.
Noctis looked away.
Veydras did not.
Discordia lifted Eris by the hair.
Eris's remaining eye wandered without focus.
Counterdoctrine activated.
Not healing.
Never healing.
Blood vessels constricted.
Clotting accelerated.
Pressure around the damaged region redistributed.
Surviving neural pathways received impossible priority.
The skull did not close.
The missing piece did not return.
The exposed injury remained.
But her eye focused.
Discordia saw it.
Eris saw Discordia.
And began crying again.
Silently.
Discordia released her.
Eris fell onto both knees.
Her right hand touched the side of her head.
She felt the edge.
Her fingers stopped.
The knowledge reached her face.
She pulled the hand away.
Blood covered it.
Eris stared.
Then at Discordia.
Then at Veydras.
Her lips moved.
No sound.
Veydras understood anyway.
Help me.
He stepped forward.
Discordia looked at him.
Eris saw that.
Her expression changed.
She got between them.
Again.
Veydras whispered, "Why?"
Eris could not answer.
She did not need to.
War knew.
She knew.
Discordia knew.
That was why Discordia kept walking toward them.
Not because she had forgotten Eris.
Because she had learned her.
Eris would always stand between violence and the soldiers inside her war.
Even when standing was the violence.
Discordia raised her hand.
Eris raised her right.
The dominant one.
The hand that had carried almost every instinctive answer she had ever possessed.
Discordia looked at it.
Then smiled.