The Silver Knight by Kate Cotoner

skin.
    Disgust churned through him. Sufyan wrenched himself away. With a roar of rage, he brought his foot down on the back of the fiend's head. It shrieked, and he hit it again, this time hacking at it with both swords until the skull cracked and showed the darkness within.
    The fiend writhed. Its cries rose to a crescendo of sound so terrified and shrill that Sufyan felt frantic to silence it. He chopped at the exposed vertebrae of the spine, desperate to sever the head from the body. The tiny wound in his leg throbbed, the flesh around the bite burning as if he were on fire.
    Their struggle had smothered the flame from the lamp. The stench of cooked flesh hung around them, heavier and fouler than any incense. Sufyan panted, fury rolling through him as he brought his swords down again and again—but still the fiend didn't die, not even when its head was joined to its body only by the smallest sliver of desiccated flesh.
    Exhausted, Sufyan collapsed backward onto the floor, his swords clattering over the pavement. His hands gripped the cold stone and he forced himself up onto his feet again as the blood-fiend crawled toward him. Its neck was broken, its skull caved in, and yet it still came at him, its eyes red as blood. It seemed to laugh at him as it gathered itself for one final lunge.
    Sufyan picked up his swords and held them in front of him. The fiend shrieked once and leaped forward. Sufyan caught it on his crossed swords. The weight and speed of its attack hurled him back and he let himself fall, curving his spine and kicking up his legs. He rolled, a perfect backward somersault, and with all his might, he flung the blood-fiend away from him and toward the open font.
    The monster smashed against the font with such force that the old stone cracked. Holy water gushed out, soaking the fiend. It screamed in agony, smoke rising from its body as it began to dissolve. The fiend shook, bones rattling as it fell apart. The gobbet of flesh holding its head to its body snapped, and its skull rolled across the nave to rest at the foot of a pillar.
    A deathly hush settled upon the church. Sufyan got to his feet, groaning at the sharp reminder of pain from his wound. Still holding his swords, he walked toward the font and looked down at what remained of the blood-fiend. A broken skull, a few long bones, and a scatter of smaller fragments gleamed wetly from the floor. The font continued to leak from the jagged crack in its stonework, the holy water forming a puddle at Sufyan's feet.
    He sighed. It was over.
    And then he remembered Everard.
    Sufyan turned, looking around the church. The last time he'd seen Everard was when the knight had flung the lamp at the blood-fiend. Perhaps Everard had gone to find the fiend's lair, but it seemed an odd thing to do when he must have been able to see how desperate the fight was between Sufyan and the monster.
    “Everard.” His voice came out sounding husky. He coughed and tried again, loud enough this time to cause an echo. “Everard!”
    Nothing.
    Sufyan reasoned that the knight must have gone outside to search the cemetery. He had no right to feel aggrieved or abandoned. Everard had simply followed their plan. But now he had to tell Everard of their success. Sufyan imagined the happiness and relief on Everard's face and the joy they would find in each other's bodies. After all this, he deserved another few hours of slow, languorous lovemaking.
    Chuckling at the thought, Sufyan sheathed his scimitars and gingerly collected together the wet bones. He picked up the skull last, hesitating a moment before he set it atop the other bones nestled in the crook of his arm. Then he took one of the remaining lamps, opened the church door, and went outside.
    The night was black, the sky clouded over to muffle the moon and stars. Sufyan held up the lamp as he wandered around the graveyard, the blood-fiend's bones clutched to his chest. “Everard!” he called, over and over. “Everard!”
    He stayed