Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

“I’m not arguing with you about this,” I said to Emma, having already been arguing for nearly ten minutes. “You’re staying here until I get back.”

“I deserve to at least know why,” Emma had her feet planted and her fists balled. “I didn’t swear myself to your lead so I could be kept safe whenever we face true danger.”

Her lips twisted, and her voice turned bitter. “I am not a child. I am not a damsel. I am training to be a warrior. Why are you leaving me behind?”

I caught Lias’s shadowy gaze from across the room. I felt his impatience, but ignored him to focus on my ward. The night had passed, and both of us had managed to catch a few hours of rest. I’d rested little, in truth, and had taken the time to consider my next course of action.

I’d also made the mistake of telling Emma about that course, and giving her the chance to butt heads with me.

“I haven’t trained you for this,” I told her. “You’re not ready.”

The young woman’s amber eyes flashed with fury, but I continued before she could speak. “Hunting demons is a dark business, Emma. They can get in your thoughts, in your skin.”

“Nath taught me more tricks than you might think,” Emma said. “I am not helpless, even against magic.”

I paused at that. Nath was ancient, and she had battled the profane before humanity had erected so much as a single hut within these shores. It was possible Emma could be of some help, with Briar sorcery and her Blood Art at hand.

I steeled my resolve and shook my head. “Not this time, kid. I’m sorry, but this monster is no joke. Stay with Lias. He might have some tasks for you, and I’m still waiting for word from Catrin besides. She might get a message to me through you.”

A lame excuse, but I’d made up my mind. Emma glowered at me a long moment, then her expression became remote. “As you command,” she said, and turned on her heel to march away at a stiff gait.

I’d regret that later, I suspected. I’d been pushing Emma away, depriving her of opportunities to prove her measure both to me and to herself. How long before she lost faith in both of us?

But I knew what I faced wasn’t an enemy for anyone without experience. Emma Orley might have a keen blade and a deadly Art, but it wouldn’t protect her against what had been in Lady Yselda’s bedroom.

I wasn’t even certain I could protect her, much less myself.

“I take it you have some sort of plan?” Lias asked me, distracted by more research. I’d approached the desk he worked at after my squire had stormed off. “Also, what is the story with that girl?”

“I’ll tell you another time,” I said, intending to never tell him. The last thing Emma needed was a wizard interested in her bloodline. “For now, I need more information about things the Accord and the Inquisition might have overlooked.”

“Oh?” Lias pulled his attention from his book. The way his shadowy visage twisted to one side, as though there were nothing but man-shaped gas beneath the robe, was eerie.

“The changeling community,” I said. “They see and know things even your spies might not, and they wouldn’t talk to the Priorguard freely. I might be able to convince them to help me. They might give me a warmer trail to follow than an empty room and a name, anyway.”

“If you believe so,” Lias said. He always sounded dismissive, so I couldn’t be certain of the skepticism I heard in his voice.

“I’m also going to investigate more of the places this Carmine Killer has been — I want to know if this demon was there at all of them. Could be the inquisitors missed something, and I need to know if Yith is working alone or not.”

I felt Lias’s frown even if I couldn’t see it. “You believe there may be more than one Abyssal here?”

“…Perhaps.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. There was only the one at Caelfall, and it hadn’t taken physical form when I came in contact with it. Still, if there’s even a chance it’s one of the eight who were in Seydis, then I won’t assume anything. There’s the Council to worry about too.”

Every new thing I learned about this threat made me less certain I could handle it alone. Even still, if not me, then who? There were no Alder Knights left. No sane ones anyway.

The Table weren’t the only order of paladins in Urn. A strange thought came to me — why not work with the Inquisition?

Other than the fact they’d toss me in a cell, or break me on a wheel? I was an apostate from a traitor order, and wanted in half the Accorded Realms besides.

“You have those locations for me?” I asked the magus.

Lias smoothly produced a slip of paper and handed it to me. “Delivered by one of Faisa Dance’s messengers an hour ago.”

I took the small scroll and began studying the addresses inside.

Lias waited a moment, then spoke again. “And I am to, what, babysit your sidekick?”

“Don’t let her hear you call her that,” I warned without humor. “And she’s capable. Put her to work, maybe have her run down another lead or haunt the inns for more information. You can attach her to your Lord Yuri disguise, have her play the valet.” I held up a finger. “Do not put her in the way of this demon. She’s not a paladin, Li.”

“Very well,” Lias said, turning back to his work. “I am certain I can find a task or three, if you think she might be of use. Good hunting, Hewer. Do try not to die.”

***

More rain. It fell from the sky in a ceaseless patter, rarely more than a drizzle but enough to leave damp clinging to every stone and crevice of the city.

I spent the whole morning and a good chunk of the afternoon moving through various districts, finding the places Faisa Dance’s information cited and appraising them in the same way I’d done Yselda of Mirrebel’s home.

I didn’t find much. Some lingering echoes of something dark, perhaps, but I couldn’t be certain they weren’t just the remnants of a violent death. I found nothing so extreme as what had been in the manse.

Every living thing has aura, and in a great city like Urn there is an abundance of it. Human thought, human enterprise, fear, tension, excitement, frustration, lust, and a hundred other myriad emotions all created a swirl of pressure on my spiritual senses. Much of the time I couldn’t shut out the background noise, which impeded my ability to discern more subtle details.

Maxim had warned me about this. He’d told me cities were too loud. I hadn’t listened, but the old chevalier had been right. I could not listen to the land’s quiet as easily here, and find the disturbances in it.

Most of the victims had been creatives of one sort or another, like Lady Yselda. A few had been minor officials with the Accord, and one an architect of some note who’d been in charge of building a new basilica in the Gate Quarter. I combed the last locations of seven of them, and found little of worth.

I could keep going, but it would take me more than a day to scour the entire city for all the victims. I had hoped that by picking up more traces of Yith’s presence, I could follow the sensation to wherever the creature hid.

Yet, if he were still in the city — which I couldn’t be certain of — he hid himself well.

At the very least, I knew now that my hunt for the Carmine Killer and for the Council of Cael were interests in common. Once I dealt with both, I could call my old obligation to Lias and Rosanna fulfilled, and be at peace with returning to being Headsman.

I could only hope.

“She has abandoned us!”

The shouting voice drew me from my thoughts. I stood in the relative shelter of a narrow alley between two shops, taking a brief respite from the rain. Next to me lay a back street lined in taverns and small businesses.

A small crowd had gathered to listen to an old woman. She was an odd sight, her thin frame practically swallowed by an angry scarlet robe hanging in ragged strips in the street where puddles of rainwater weighed it down further. I could barely see her face through a mane of dirty gray hair, but I could make out the battered auremark hanging from her neck.

Most symbols of the Faith are wrought from copper, brass, or gold, depending on the owner’s wealth. Some very old sects even weave theirs from the wood of certain trees, with the golden Earde being the most coveted.

The woman in the red robe wore an auremark forged of iron. It swung from a thick rope about her bent neck, weighing her down like a leaden chain.

The old woman leapt atop a pile of stacked crates, using them as a stage as she scoured the crowd with bright eyes. Then, with all the violence of a blade thrust, she hurled out one arm.

“There will be no deliverance!” Baring a mouth with too few teeth she continued without pause. “I hear it in the streets, in the taverns. I hear it whispered by apprentices as often as graybeards older than myself! You all hear its whisper in your hearts — that we are forsaken.”

The red-robed woman pointed a trembling finger at a girl holding a covered basket. The youth’s eyes widened as she realized she’d been singled out.

“Look upon this one, good people, and see her! See her youth, the brightness of her eyes. Is she not the very image of fair Lady Spring? Like to an echo of the Heir’s own handmaidens?”

The girl blushed, and murmurs rippled through the crowd as their eyes went from the woman in red to the girl. But that pointing finger drifted, moving to alight on a man in his thirties. Stubble-faced and lazy eyed, this second figure’s mismatched gear and well-used sword seemed a sort of badge of honor, even more so than the fellowship mark glinting in its brass frame on his belt.

“See this man!” The prophet barked. “See his scars, the blade he carries! How many monsters has this brave adventurer conquered, I wonder? Fifty? A hundred?”

“Is that counting the whores?” A bricklayer called out. Many in the crowd laughed, including the scarred fellowshipper.

The red prophet on the scaffold smiled at this, flashing bright teeth. The expression seemed almost a snarl. “And well such a warrior has earned so many bedfellows. Indeed! Better he lay with our women and slay our monsters than those aristo dogs, those haughty bluebloods who call themselves knights. Better this girl be our image of beauty and not those painted crones of the Houses!” She pointed again at the girl with the basket.

A hush fell over the crowd at these dangerous words. Some began to edge away from the gathering.

“Hear me!” The red woman threw an arm out, causing bells trailing along the length of her sleeve to ring. “Grim times are upon us, my brothers and sisters. The lords turn their backs on us. They send their hounds to drag us from our very homes in the night when we disobey. They consort with heretics, granting repudiation to the Recusant, opening our roads and ports to the continent and all its woes, sullying this land which we were tasked by God Herself to guard!”

“How many of you have lost a father to the fiends of Briarland?” She asked the crowd, which had begun to grow as more were drawn by the echoes of her ragged voice. “To the Recusant? How many of you wake alone in the dark, the one who should share your bed now dragged down into darkness by the wraiths of Draubard?”

No murmurs now, save for that of the rain. A child clutched her father’s hand toward the back of the crowd. They were both stained by dust and dirt, their clothes faded and torn by long and bitter roads.

“Our land is not yet ruined,” the red woman said, casting her eyes across the crowd. “Though it is scarred, we remain. And our lamentations then and now are but the precursor of what is to come! We cry into the night, my friends, and the firmament hears. Remember what the faithful promised us! Not these bureaucrats of the College, not their fat parrots! The true preosts, the warrior-faithful, whose like has become like the rarest chimera, like unto a unicorn of the west. But they are among us, my friends, and growing in number.”

Perhaps only I noted the black-garbed figures gathering near alleyways and shop doors, watching the red woman through veiled cowls like a pack of hungry shadows.

Not watching her, I realized. Watching the crowd for any naysayers.

“Through them,” the prophet continued, “our voices may be tuned as a great chorus is given order by a maestro’s wand. Seek them! The faithful, the true believers. It is only through unity that we may earn deliverance. I tell you we are not abandoned.”

Some murmurs then. Perhaps a few noticed the veiled figures watching the show, but none spoke out.

“We were promised!” The old woman’s voice became a wail itself then, and she pointed an accusing finger toward the gathering clouds above, which miraculously rumbled with thunder. Many in the crowd let out sounds of shock, some in fright and others in awe. Once again the red woman showed her rotted teeth.

“The true ruler of Heaven will return! The Heir of the Throne of God, She Who Is Honored Above All, First of the Onsolain! Queen Aureia!”

And, at the voicing of that most blessed name, the prophet threw her arms wide so the draping sleeves of her robe spread out like bloody wings. More thunder rumbled over the sea, hidden beyond Garihelm’s rooftops. The crowd was transfixed, caught in the speaker’s spell.

A spell indeed. Did only I feel the touch of aura in the speech? Not every adept is aware of their own power, so I couldn’t be certain the red-robed prophet did it intentionally.

Seemed likely, though.

“But shall She find an army of the faithful?” The prophet spat, spittle flying from her lips, “Or a rabble of frightened sheep who have forgotten Her holy word? Or perhaps a horde of wolves, picking at the bones of Her own land? Which shall you be, my brothers and sisters? Sheep? Wolves? Or lions?”

Silence, save for the storm. I saw the vagabond clutch his daughter’s hand more tightly.

“Go!” And the soothsayer threw her bell-clad arm out as though she commanded an avenging army to charge. “Do not fear demons, friends, for She shall drive them back into darkness. Remember our true sovereign! Remember that we serve one queen alone!”

She limped away then. After some time, the crowd began to part, muttering and shaken.

I turned to go as well, but a strong hand reached out to grab my elbow from the departing throng. I tensed, reaching for the dagger at my belt, but found no blade in the stranger’s hand.

It was one of the figures in black. He was as tall as me, and nearly as thickly built judging by the strength of the grip that’d stopped me. I couldn’t see his features through the dark veil, stitched with a deep red trident and hung from an iron circlet around his brow.

I recognized the trident, and the iron auremark hung from his neck.

Inquisition. I knew then that this must be one of the Priorguard.

“Help you?” I asked him, my hand still on the dagger.

I saw the shifting of the black-and-red veil as the man studied me. “You a mercenary?” He asked. He had a calm voice, oddly normal despite his grim uniform. “You seem strong, friend. The flock could use more lions to guard it.”

I raised an eyebrow, glancing toward where the old woman had stood on her makeshift pulpit. She must have been a preoster, I realized. The preternatural charisma, the holy symbol, her impassioned oration.

Lias had told me the inquisition had its roots in country preachers. Had I just caught a glimpse of one of its leaders?

“You recruiting?” I asked the priorguard, turning my attention back to him.

“Every arm is needed, if there’s a faithful heart guiding it.” Though the words had an element of quotation, I couldn’t detect any irony in the man’s tone. “Seek the church of Rose Malin, friend, if Prior Diana’s words rang true in your ears.”

He departed then, leaving me in a quickly emptying street. I noted a pair of mounted guards turning a corner down the way, and retreated myself.

Rose Malin. I had a location tied to the Inquisition’s activities in the city, now, though I didn’t know how much use it was. I filed the information away and focused on another lead.

“Funny, isn’t it?”

I stopped, glancing at a ragged figure seated at the mouth of the alley. I couldn’t tell their sex through the obscuring garb, all tattered cloth ruined by rain. They’d taken shelter from the storm beneath the overhanging roofs above, and looked little more than a mound of filthy cloth with a shadowed hole for a face.

“Did I miss a joke, friend?” I asked the beggar.

“Oh, no.” The beggar laughed, then coughed within their rags. “You listened to the Scarlet Prior’s ranting, same as I. You have to admit, there’s an irony in her words. She speaks of corruption in the church, in the nobility, in the ships from the west, yet the Priory couldn’t gain so much power without some of the land’s mighty names backing them in secret.”

I shifted to better stand beneath the shelter of the roofs, directing my attention on the beggar. “You shouldn’t underestimate the masses,” I told him. I felt sure it was a him, listening to the gravelly voice. “If these red priests can rile up enough support from the commons, they can neuter the lords easy enough.”

“Perhaps,” the beggar admitted. The tattered hood tilted up, and I caught a glimpse of the face beneath — pockmarked, gray, covered in damp grime. “Yes, I’ve seen it in the streets, heard whispers of it in the countryside. Many aristos fear the Presider, and would gladly see him slain, but any harm done to this new element will only create martyrs. The Emperor knows this.”

I knelt by the beggar’s side. He seemed too small, as though a child lay under the layers of ruined cloth, yet the voice belonged to an old man. “Who are you?” I asked him.

“No one,” the beggar hissed, cringing away from me. “No one to threaten you, Goldeye. Only one who sees.”

I studied the shape more closely, narrowing my eyes as I let my auratic senses pour their insights into me. I decided to follow my hunch. “I won’t turn you over to the Priorguard,” I told the beggar. “I’m looking for information from the Hidden Folk. I mean no harm and bring no blood.”

The ragged shape made a whimpering sound, more hound than man. “Your kind always brings blood. You bring gilt swords and scouring flame and you burn us.” His voice became more keening. “We did not ask to be born so broken.”

“I’m a friend of Catrin of Ergoth,” I told him, showing him my empty hands. “She helped me get into the city.”

At that, the beggar — the changeling — stopped his cringing retreat. “Cat? You know Cat?”

I nodded. “We know the Inquisition has been a threat to your folk. I need information, and I’m willing to pay for it with what aid I can give. I just want you to take me to someone who can help me.”

“I remember Cat,” the beggar muttered, his voice going distant with recollection. “She was a good heart. She was kind to Old Barca.”

“That’s your name?” I asked. “Barca?”

Barca shivered beneath his rags. “I’ve lived in these streets a long time, O’ Autumnal Champion. I see. I remember.”

A gnarled, warted hand ending in a yellow claw emerged from the rags and pointed at me. “Any friend of Catrin’s is a friend to Barca. I will take you to one who can aid you.”

He stood then, though it hardly increased his height. I stood as well, and the figure scurried to a narrow side alley, one descending a steep stair into a lower street. Above, more thunder rumbled.

“There will be a price,” Barca told me, stopping before going below.

I nodded, steeling myself. “I’ve paid more than a few in my time. Let’s go.”