The "blockage" in the Canal of Sighs was not made of debris. It was a dam of flesh. They arrived in an Imperial-era cistern, a vast domed hall where three sewer conduits converged into a lake of still sewage. In the center, on an islet of bones and rotting wood, the horror sat enthroned.
It was a Chaos Ogre, but so mutated by the blessings of Nurgle (the Plague Lord) that it looked more like a giant pustule than a living being. Its skin was green and translucent, pulsing with parasitic life. In place of its right hand, a monstrous crab claw was grafted into the flesh; in its left hand, it held an improvised but terrifying weapon: a rusty iron anchor, tied to a ship's chain.
"Gorgol!" yelled Otto, the rat catcher, backing away. "He was a dock legend... a stevedore who ate corpses! I thought he was dead!"
"He is dead," said Geneviève, drawing her sword. "He just forgot to stop moving."
Korgan the Slayer did not wait. With a war cry invoking death, he launched himself at the monster. The Ogre, Gorgol the Bloated, laughed—a gurgling sound like a clogged drain—and swung the anchor. The blow caught Korgan full in the chest. The dwarf flew like a cannonball, bouncing off the stone wall and falling into the water.
"Korgan!" shouted Alonzo, darting forward to distract the beast with his rapier. But the Ogre's skin was as thick as boiled leather and blubber. The Estalian's rapier pricked, but did not penetrate deeply.
Gorgol roared and brought the anchor down vertically, aiming to crush the swordsman. Geneviève stepped in between. There was no time to dodge. She raised her new shield, the one with the silver chevron and iron nails, the one she had paid three gold crowns for and painted with such care just hours before. She assumed a guard stance, shoulder against the metal.
The impact was devastating. The anchor, weighing two hundred kilos, smashed into the shield. There was no metallic clang. There was a dry, agonizing CRACK. The reinforced wood of the shield exploded. The metal bands twisted. Geneviève felt the shock travel up her left arm to her neck, making her grit her teeth. She was thrown backward, landing on one knee in the mud.
She looked at her left arm. It held only the handle and a few splinters of black-painted wood. The rest of her noble crest lay in the sludge, reduced to toothpicks.
"I had... just... made it..." growled Geneviève. Her gravel voice trembled, not with fear, but with pure economic indignation. "That was fresh paint, you damn sack of pus!"
Gorgol was hauling up the anchor for a second blow, the definitive one. Alonzo was too far away. Korgan was still spitting black water. Geneviève was alone. Without a shield. She looked at her two-handed sword. Suddenly, Thorgard's voice rang in her mind, as clear as if the dwarf were there: "A shield is just a lazy wall, girl. A wall stands still and waits to be broken. A blade... a blade is a wall that moves. If you are fast enough, the air itself becomes iron."
Geneviève stood up. She dropped the useless remains of the shield. She gripped the hilt of the sword with both hands. She felt a shift in her spiritual energy. The despair over the loss of defense transformed into absolute focus. She didn't need to block. She needed to deflect. Wall of Wind / Parrying Stance.
Gorgol threw the anchor horizontally, a sweep that should have cut her in half at the waist. Geneviève did not back down. Instead of striking the monster, she struck the attack. She rotated her wrists. Her sword became a vortex. She didn't try to stop the anchor; she used the flat of the blade to hit the chain at the point of maximum tension. CLANG. The anchor was deflected upward, whistling harmlessly over her helm.
Gorgol, confused, tried to crush her with the crab-hand. Geneviève entered a martial trance. She sacrificed every intention of pure attack. Every muscle, every nerve was dedicated to active defense. Her sword moved so fast it looked like a steel fan in front of her. She parried a claw swipe to the right. She deflected a punch to the left. A ghost of black steel dancing under the giant's rain of blows.
"Now!" shouted Alonzo, seeing the Ogre off-balance from frustration.
Geneviève saw the opening. Gorgol had raised both arms for a hammer blow. His bloated belly was exposed. Geneviève stopped defending. All the energy accumulated in the defensive dance exploded into a single point.
She took a step forward, sinking into the mud, and unleashed an upward slash. The blade, infused with spiritual energy, shone in the darkness of the sewer. It cut through the fat, through the rotten ribs, through the spine. Gorgol froze. A surprised gurgle escaped his throat. Slowly, the upper part of his body slid off the lower part, falling into the lake with a disgusting splash.
Silence returned to the cistern, broken only by Geneviève's heavy breathing and the dripping of black blood from her blade. Korgan emerged from the water, coughing and spitting out a blind minnow. He saw the monster split in two. He saw the human standing, shieldless, cleaning the sword with a greasy rag.
"By Grimnir's beard..." muttered the Slayer, impressed. "You parried an anchor with a sword? You're either crazy or a genius, Tin Can."
Geneviève sheathed the weapon. She bent down and picked up a fragment of her destroyed shield: the piece with one of the painted iron nails. She looked at it with sadness. "Three crowns," she murmured with her hoarse voice, shaking her head. "That monster owed me three crowns."
Alonzo approached, sheathing his stiletto. He touched Geneviève's armored shoulder. "My friend," said the Estalian with an admiring smile. "With what the Directorate pays us for Gorgol's head, you can buy ten shields. But if I may give you advice from swordsman to swordsman... after what I saw today, I don't think you need another one. Your sword is a better shield than any piece of wood."
Geneviève tucked the wood fragment into her pouch as a keepsake. She felt the muscles in her arms burning in a new way. She had learned something beyond brute strength. She had learned that defense is not passive. Defense is an attack that hasn't touched flesh yet.
"Let's go," she croaked, heading for the exit. "We smell like death and I'm hungry. And Alonzo... you're buying."