Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 7: Chapter 9: Stories

A lingering, weighty silence followed Kross’s words. The devils and dark things in the room turned their faces to look at me, all of them waiting, expecting me to react.

I drew in a deep breath, let it out, then turned to the door. “No.”

Kross blinked at me. “What? What do you mean, no?”

“No,” I said again with a shrug. “Lias can go to hell. Literally, I guess. He got himself into this mess, and I’m sure he’ll find a way to weasel out of it. I have other things to do.” Too many things.

Kross stood to his feet and lurched toward me, only to wince and clutch his side. “But… after everything I just told you? Did none of that sink in!?”

“It all sounded very important and complicated,” I agreed. “But what it boils down to is that you made an alliance with the least trustworthy man I know and he burned you. I’ll bet he’s halfway across Edaea by now. I’m not going to waste time looking for him.”

Kross spoke through his teeth. “An angel is hunting for him, along with my own order and a regiment of implacable, tireless soldiers. If they catch him, they will kill him and take the Zoscian back.”

“That’s his problem.” I paused before opening the door and turned back. “What did you expect, Vicar? Lias betrayed me. He turned his back on the queen we both swore our lives to. I’ve already mourned my old friend. Now, he’s just…” I trailed off, then shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s his consequence. I’m happy to let him pay it.”

“And the artifact?” Kross demanded. “Have I not given you a strong enough notion as to how dangerous it is in the wrong hands?”

I couldn’t say what Lias might do with the thing. If I were him, I’d shut the doors to this world in the devils’ faces and let that solve at least one of our problems. It would solve a lot of problems…

“It’s not just him.” Falstaff sighed and also stood, which made Saska pout. “Vicar has a point. What if someone else finds him first? Think about what might have happened if that witch Hyperia had the means to open any abyssal gaol she wanted. It would have made Seydis look like a carnival.”

I paused. That was a disturbing thought. “Lias is capable of handling himself,” I reasoned.

“He is alone.” Kross took a step closer to me, almost near enough to reach out and grasp my shoulder. “It is only a matter of time before what’s happening gets out. The more time passes, the more factions will be hunting for the magician. He will be caught, sooner rather than later, and if we don’t find him first…”

“What if I don’t want you to find him?” I shook my head. “What if I don’t want to let things return to the status quo? I’m happy you’ve lost your means to damn more souls, Vicar. Why would you think I’d just give it back to you?”

“You are being a fool,” he hissed. “This is about something bigger. The Zoscian is a weapon. It must be secured.”

We matched glares for a while. Falstaff broke our stalemate. “Whatever the case, you made a mistake drawing so much attention to yourself. People in my community know who you are, Renuart. They’re going to ask questions, and before long they’ll know what’s going on. You’ve kicked off a free-for-all manhunt.”

He clapped the other man on the shoulder, who winced at the impact. “Congratulations. You’re fucked. Now I want you out of my inn. I’m pulling us into the Wend before dawn and I’m not coming back out until this blows over. I’ll give anyone who wants a chance to jump ship, but I won’t wait long.”

He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. While I’d considered using the inn as a means of travel, I’d decided against it. The Keeper seemed intent on staying out of anything that might cause him more harm, and there was no telling when he’d open his doors again. Better to be on my way.

The Keeper hesitated, then reached into a pocket and produced something. He handed it to me, and it turned out to be a small medallion on a leather string. Made of brass with a ring of silver, it had a symbol stamped into the front, a broken hourglass turned onto its side so the sand spilled out.

“That belongs to Eilidh,” Falstaff told me. I frowned and looked at it more closely as he elaborated. “It’s a marker for her family, given to me when she started her tenure here as collateral. She comes from a clan of bankers and scriveners. Good family. Not nobles, but influential.”

“How did she end up here?” I asked.

The Keeper’s customary sneer returned. “To a brothel, you mean? Haven’t you been paying attention? Everyone’s got a story, Hewer. Hers isn’t mine to tell. You’re still going to Tol, right?”

I eyed him warily, but he just pointed at the locket. “Eilid’s older brother runs a business there. Show him this, and he’ll do whatever you ask within reason. He’s no one special, but the family has connections.”

I nodded slowly, wondering why he gave me this. Contrition? I doubted it from him. More likely this was some scheme, but I’d play along. “What should I tell him about his sister?”

Falstaff’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing, if you’re smart. He’ll know not to ask questions.”

I secured the locket in a pouch along my belt and turned toward the door. I ignored Kross’s angry stare. He was on his own, same as me. Same as most of us.

Same as Lias. I had a mission and a hundred questions for the Choir when I next made contact. A better man might have tried to help his friend, no matter what he’d done in the past.

But I was not a good man. Any god, angel, or devil who knew me would say the same.

I went about two hundred paces from the edge of the inn’s yard. When I turned, there was nothing there. Just a patch of sickly looking ground with the blasted remnants of a rotted foundation poking up from the snow.

I stroked Morgause’s neck. She seemed eager to be off, her panting breaths misting into the chilly night. I had only an hour or two before dawn. I felt it. A shiver of energy in the deep woodland darkness, a sense of anticipation as day prepared to draw its first waking breath.

And yet, that darkest, quietest part of night before sunrise is often the most dangerous. Taking a breath to steal myself, aware that I’d not gotten the chance to rest, eat, or recuperate for my long journey as I’d hoped, I spurred my steed on.

In the gloom, in the crevices of the forest, in the deep hollows of sleeping trees and from beneath frozen roots, the dead emerged to follow me. I felt their hunger, their eagerness, and yet it held a different quality than before. Through the long years of my purgatory, they’d always seemed intent on feeding off my pain. They still were, I knew, but they were hungrier for something else now.

They anticipated the battle to come because they knew that in that bloodshed I would have to draw on the flame within me, and chase away the cold.

I knew because part of me also wanted it.

Five days.

I left Reynwell and forged into the deeper forests of the Cairnhurst, skirting along the edges of the Bannerlands. There were rumors of bloodshed in the Banners, just like there were rumors of burned townships and skirmishes between soldiers in the Baerns.

Fighting in the west. Fighting in the east. Would I find the same in the south? As I made my little campfire again and settled for a bitterly cold morning to give both Morgause and me some hours to rest, I felt like I could see it all. I’d studied maps in Garihelm, to familiarize myself with the lands I strove to protect with my grim, lonely crusades, and had a clearer picture of it in my mind than at any previous point in my life.

I daydreamed of that scrap of parchment burning, little motes of flame flaring up across its lines and labels, expanding, spreading until the whole of it curled away into a dimming cascade of embers.

In that same vision, it happened as quietly and inconsequentially as if I had only burned a map. If the war being waged in my homeland was truly so vast, so cosmic in scope, then what would it matter if it all burned and vanished? Just another ghost of a memory, remembered by none but those who’d endured so long through the eons that it did not move them.

When the vampire Laertes talked of these things, it hadn’t really registered. I’d had plenty more to worry about near at hand, and he’d sounded like any other immortal dealing out ideas of time and destiny like they were bread crumbs he deigned to gift to us mere mortals. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I turned it over and over in my head…

The angrier I became.

It was another cloudy day, but even if it weren’t the sun would hardly dare to delve too greedily into the depths of the Cairnhurst. It was an old forest, grown thick and tall in labyrinthine paths. There were ancient ruins everywhere from some old kingdom or other, overgrown, some sinking into the depths of the earth as the wild took them. The Wend lingered close to the mortal world here, shifting through the forest like banks of mist and refractions of light.

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It reminded me of Seydis, in some ways. Only, the river valleys and green rainforests around Elfhome were long tamed by the Sidhe, refashioned to their liking. All the illusions, the marble phantasms, and the hidden burrow-worlds in that realm had been to the delight and glory of the elves, woven like tapestries are woven, raised and sculpted like cathedrals.

Not here. Here the magic grew wild. It grew teeth.

For the twelfth time in the past hour, I took a single twig of wood taken from one of the trees and held it up to my lips. I breathed onto the very mildly cursed piece of oak, and it flickered with almost metallic gold-white flames for a moment. I then tossed it onto the fire, which drank it hungrily. Then, taking up my carving knife I went back to work on my axe’s handle, shaving it down and shaping it into something more comfortable to hold. I did this for ten minutes. Not so much as a breeze rustled the canopy. Morgause’s tufted ears twitched, but she did not rise from where she lay curled nearby.

Without raising my eyes from my work I said, “I know you’re there. May as well come out and say what you want to say.”

A twig snapped. An intentional bit of drama, one I didn’t react to. The shadows within the gap between two tall trees that curled together like twisted roots toward their tops grew suddenly more solid. Twin red eyes, dimly burning like coals, appeared in that spot of darkness.

A guttural, sinister voice spoke. “How long have you known I followed?”

The voice held the cadence of a bestial growl, yet it lacked volume, as though it emerged from a further depth than the floating eyes implied.

“Two days now,” I said with just a brief glance up. “I think Morgause has known for three.”

The scadumare watched the presence with her scarlet eyes open wide, ears back and sharp teeth exposed. She otherwise made no sound or movement.

The voice lowered into a true growl. I couldn’t tell if it were a thoughtful noise or an angry one.

I inhaled deeply, set my axe down, and leaned forward to put my whole attention on the hidden figure. “I’m not going to change my mind, so why are you stalking me?”

There was a deep snort, then a single huge paw emerged from the hollow. A long, scarred snout followed, muzzle wrinkled and leathery. The black nose twitched, just before the jaws beneath parted to reveal iron teeth. Those burning eyes glared at me, into me. I felt their heat, real and intense as the campfire’s warmth on my skin. If not for the aura I’d been feeding into that fire, I suspected the effect would be stronger.

The black wolf took another tentative step forward on paws heavy enough to crush a man’s ribcage. It paused just at the edge of the campfire’s light, just like the ghost of Orson Falconer had done. It growled angrily and pulled back.

“Just as I thought,” I said with satisfaction. “You’re just another ghost, aren’t you? A damned, devil-touched soul only made stronger because of the hellfire mixed up with you. And before you bother asking, no. I don’t invite you to share my campfire.”

Vicar’s heavy breaths were audible even over the crackling flames. “Is that what all this theater was about? Proving a point? Testing a theory?”

His voice in this form sounded very different. As Renuart Kross he had a cultured voice, strong and confident like a well learned soldier, weighty with experience and stern wisdom. As the wolf, he sounded angry, bitter, the unnatural voice shivering with resentful hunger.

I wondered if this was his true form, even more so than the burned monk he’d appeared as during Emma’s trial. I’d only seen this shape once before, back when he’d intervened in my fight with Lias.

“I make these fires every day,” I told him honestly. “They help keep the weaker spirits away, and they eat all the wild curses.”

The wolf started to pace. It wasn’t quite a wolf, I realized. It was near big as any dire wolf I’d seen, but its fur was shorter, its head more blunt in shape. Scars and scorch marks covered its hide, which sported festering wounds.

It had something of the wolf in its long hackles and tufted ears, though. A hellhound.

“Ah, yes.” The beast’s chuckle made my skin crawl. “Since you lost your little drow ring, I imagine the spirits of the dead ravage your dreams. You know, most who are cursed as you are go mad very quickly.”

“I’ve learned to cope.” I shifted and settled back. Though I wasn’t exactly safe from him inside the campfire, I got the sense he wanted to talk. “Nice trick with the medallion, by the way. I didn’t realize you Zosite devils did favors for your prisoners.”

The hound stopped its pacing a ways to my left. It seemed to be testing the edges of the light, like it searched for weaknesses in the ring. “The succubus tricked us. I did not realize she’d slipped a parasite into the medallion until after I took it back from you beneath Rose Malin.”

“Sure. You carried that thing around, waiting for the chance to use it while you twisted your knives, but the demon shadow hiding in it, that was just an accident.”

He trailed into silence for a time. I blew out a frozen breath and folded my cloak more tightly around my shoulders. “If you think I’m going after Lias and hope to find him by following me, you’ll be disappointed. I already have business.”

The hellhound’s head tilted curiously. “A task? From the emperor, or…”

I didn’t answer. Vicar seemed to be thinking, working through the implications himself.

“Either way, I don’t have time to be sidetracked.” I looked up and fixed the fiendish wolf with a hard look. “Nor do I care to have a devil following me around.”

He started pacing again, baring his metal teeth. “‘Get thee behind me,’ is that it?”

“More or less.” My hand drifted toward my axe, something the crowfriar did not miss.

“We do not have to be in conflict, Alder Knight. I am hunted and friendless, and you are alone and surrounded by enemies and conspiracy. We can be useful to one another.”

“Desperate friends make quick enemies. You heard that one? You seem like the type who’s heard that one.” I snorted and narrowed my eyes. “Don’t you have some unholy relic to go sniff out? Off with you, mutt. I’m tired, and have plenty more miles to go.”

“To Tol?”

My eyes snapped open. The devil cackled. “Yes! I heard the name when Falstaff spoke it. You are heading south, into Osheim, into the war weary country that shields Kingsmeet. The place where the great civil war of Urn truly started…”

“You know you can make anything sound like a prophecy if you try hard enough?” I said conversationally, gesturing with my knife. “Watch, I’ll do it. In the depths of the Cairn Trees, a very ugly dog who likes to sniff his own ass spoke many fancy words to a knight who doesn’t give a shit, but lo! He so loved the sound of his own voice, he did not realize when the listener began to snore…”

Vicar growled angrily. “Jest all you wish, but you travel blindly into a storm and mock the only guide at your disposal. I am following you because you are going south, because I know what transpires there, and I believe our destinations and goals may be more aligned than you think.”

I had no ready quip for that. I stared into the middle distance, trying not to react.

Vicar paced into my line of vision. He seemed to blend with the darkness, given shape only by his metal teeth and burning eyes. “Ask your questions. Ask me what I know of Osheim.”

I leaned back against my packs. “No. Be off with you.”

“Fool. Your stubbornness will damn you.”

“So will you. Now go away.”

I left the forest on the sixth day after quitting the Backroad Inn. Not wanting any trouble, I dodged patrols from a Bannerlands border count, and that cost me another two. It would have been three, but I lost them in a blizzard. By the time I’d entered the rugged northern hills of Harvesvane, thirteen days had passed since I’d left Garihelm.

I traveled at night, using my own abilities and my mount’s nocturnal nature to move unseen when most were abed. I skirted villages, hunted for my meals. I stopped making fires as the land became more populated, relying on the magic in me to keep from freezing to death.

On occasion, I’d cover myself with glamour so my crimson cloak turned dun brown, my fine armor into the sturdy leathers of a freesword, and sneak into a roadside inn and listen to traveler’s gossip. It was all much the same as what the necromancer Sans had talked of. Border wars, skirmishes, banditry, monsters lurking in the deep night. By the third time I’d done it, I wondered why I bothered.

“Reminds you of something,” a bard said on the fifteenth day.

I grunted, sipping at a cup of warm ale. “And what’s that?”

She leaned closer. A tall woman, lanky as a reed and dressed in one of the garish new fashions becoming more popular lately. “Of the years before the civil war, right? All the little skirmishes and dark rumors, tales of soldiers and monsters everywhere you look.”

The inn had a large crowd. Typical sort. Travelers, traders, adventurers, pilgrims. There might have been an elf in the corner, disguised as a toothless soothsayer. Seemed like too many for midwinter.

I shrugged. “Seems like things are always like that.” It’d been like that since I’d been a boy, hearing about the fall of House Silvering and its refugee princess.

A young man who’d been trying to impress the bard for most of an hour spoke up. “It’s not just rumors! I was there at Garihelm during the tournament. I saw the fires up on the palace during the battle with the Vykes.” His voice lowered into a hush. “I saw the dragon.”

“There were no fires,” I muttered. “And it was a foggy night anyway.”

The youth, probably a squire or caravaner judging by his side sword, glared at me. The bard’s eyes lit with interest as she caught the scent of a story she could strum out on her lute. “You were there?”

“I was bloody there,” the maybe-squire muttered. “And there were those banners they make out of light. They’re sort of like fires, aren’t they?”

“And the dragon?” The bard asked, leaning closer.

The squire fell into his telling eagerly. “The Vykes brought it! They set it loose during the tournament to kill all the champions at once, only it it didn’t work, so they tried sieging the palace, only the Emperor was there and he can call angels. Everyone’s seen him do it. He summoned them back during the great war, and to judge Bloody Al after he culled the priests, and they laid shackles on him so he has to serve the Emperor now and can’t hurt the faithful anymore.”

He took a breath, then drank, which made him have to take another breath. The bard nodded indulgently, but I saw the energetic tapping of her long fingers as she worked out some new beat. I felt uneasy and hid it by sipping at my own cup.

“So the Emperor and all the knights there for the tourney beat the Vykes,” the boy continued. “But King Calerus lost his witch sister in the fighting and lamented his evils. Now he’s back in Talsyn licking his wounds.”

“I heard it was the Empress who laid a spell on Bloody Al,” a man at a nearby table said. “Ensorceled him with songs and poisoned wines, so now he’s loyal to her without question. She’s a sorceress too, you know. She bewitched the Emperor.”

“No she didn’t,” I said, but no one heard me.

“Either way,” an old soldier said darkly, “try to chain a wild dog and feed it meats, it’ll still bite you first chance it gets. Better to put the devil down.”

“Maybe so!” The lad, who was drunk, slammed his cup down and sloshed it all over the table. Some of it splashed me. “But we’ll need devils for what’s to come, mark me.”

“Oh?” The bard asked, amused. “And what’s that, lad?”

Being called lad clearly didn’t sit well with the young man, but he spoke in a breathless rush. “King Forger is the hero of our time. The Ardent Bough is being reformed. The protector of Urn is calling for us to fight, and I’m answering just as my father and uncles did after Golden Seydis burned! All the faithful should do the same. The preoster in my village said it, and I saw the truth of it at Garihelm, and now I’m telling you. A new war is coming against the Dark Lord who desecrates our home!”

“Which one?” I asked, but again no one heard me.

The conversation strayed from there. The Grand Tournament of Garihelm and the short war with the Vykes were old news. Everyone was eager to find new monsters to gossip about. I watched the bard woman study the crowd, nodding thoughtfully as she made subtle changes to whatever composition she wove in her tapping fingers and muttering lips. I did not think I’d like the song, hearing the rumors that inspired it.

I couldn’t listen to anymore. I paid for my meal and left. As I saddled my chimera, a red-eyed shadow appeared at the edge of the stable.

“Sad, isn’t it? How they reward your sacrifice. They want heroes that inspire them, Alken, not butchers.”

I mounted and turned Morgause southward. “Shut up.”