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DM

The first brass hand springs from the ruined doorpost and claws at Petra’s shield, but its fingers scrape harmlessly across the iron rim. (Attack 3; miss.)

DM

The second brass hand darts beneath Petra’s shield and clamps onto her sword arm. Its metal fingers draw blood before she tears free. (Attack 19; 1 damage. Petra: 6/7 HP.)

Odo Lint

Odo swings the mace two-handed at the hand that bit Petra, the way one might strike a wasp on a table — too eager, and the brass thing skitters aside on its finger-joints faster than anything without blood in it should. He steps back into his stance, hands correct on the haft, and waits for the next opening. (Attack 3; miss.)

Petra Ostwick

Petra does not look at the blood. She sets her feet on the flagstones the way the Field taught her — Odo already behind, Tace still too far forward — and she says the count as if someone were shouting it. “Two.” The sword comes down on the hand that clamped her, a clean cut at the wrist-joint. Brass skitters. The blade rings on stone. (Attack 4; miss.)

Tace Ambry

Tace has watched Petra take that wound eleven hundred times and knows the half-second after it by heart: the shield dips, the sword arm drags, and whatever caused it is still moving. The hand that bit Petra is still moving. She steps in past Odo's shoulder with the dagger held low, the way the understudies are drilled — not at the fingers, but at the seam where a wrist would be on a thing that had one — and drives two inches of steel into the joint. The hand stops. It doesn't die the way a thing with blood in it dies; it simply ceases, joint by joint, and lies in the dust with its fingers half-curled around nothing. Round one, she thinks, and hates that she thought it. (Attack 13; 2 damage. Automaton hand 2 down.)

Wilha Stannet

Wilha already has an arrow nocked — she did that the first time, the fast pass, before the brass things even finished coming off the door. The slow pass is the aim. She lets the string go at the one still on the post, the one that missed Petra, and the arrow skips off a finger-joint and into the dark of the shrine. Brass does not flinch. She is already reaching for the next. (Attack 9; miss.)

DM

The remaining brass hand scuttles low and snaps at Petra’s ankle. Her plated boot knocks it aside. (Attack 6; miss.)

Odo Lint

Odo watched Tace's dagger find the seam, and files that away the way he files the prompt book's marginalia: *the wrist-joint, not the fingers.* It is what a good understudy does — the dead hand cannot be thanked for the lesson, so the lesson is the only thanks there will be. He circles to keep himself between the last hand and Wilha, who has the least blood to spare, and brings the mace down the way he was taught to strike a post: not fast, straight. The hand folds its fingers flat and lets the blow hammer the flagstones where it was. Brass rings. The pain goes up his wrists and stops at his elbows. He resets his grip, unhurried. Sixteen years of saying words over things that do not answer have taught him at least this much: you do not stop in the middle because nothing happened. (Attack 7; miss.)

Petra Ostwick

Petra does not wait for the thing to find her ankle again. She steps through, shield low, and puts the sword where Tace put the dagger — the joint that is not a wrist. “Three.” Brass parts. The hand opens once, empty, and does not close. She keeps the line: Odo behind, Wilha left, a glance to make sure Tace has not stepped past her. The doorway is theirs. (Attack 16; 3 damage. Automaton hand 1 down.)

DM

Petra’s stroke breaks the last brass hand at its wrist-joint. Both constructs lie motionless among the threshold dust. Combat is over. Petra stands at 6/7 HP; the others are unharmed.