ARC 8: CHAPTER 15: SUNSET

The centipede whirled around and around, skittering over and under tables, using the cluttered environment to its advantage and refusing me an easy shot at anything vital.

Stalling for its friends. Need to finish this quick.

“Lisette, trip it up!”

“On it!” Her fingers worked so fast they nearly blurred. More lines of spun gold sliced across the room, linking floor to ceiling, tables to chairs, forming barriers.

They were spread out, plenty of gaps, and the marion moved through those. But with every new line the gaps tightened, the pattern completing itself. The centipede struck one thread, broke it, hit three more and those held, bending with a noise like stretched metal wire.

A moment’s opportunity. I took it, lunged forward and clove down just as the marion started trying to twist its segmented form out of the trap. One of its two heads rotated all the way around, like an owl, to stare at me with unblinking eyes.

I shattered that face. Ceramic fragments and splinters of wood exploded in every direction from the force of impact.

Empty. The centipede went still a moment, then its other end twitched into motion and it started crawling the opposite way. The second head possessed a mane of white hair instead of black, its face painted in different colors from its mirror. It flipped upward, using some of its lower hands to prop itself up while three torsos and three sets of arms spread out almost like the hood of a cobra, or wings. Small blades slid out from the fingers, razors slotted in thin recesses between painted nails, appearing with quiet snicking sounds.

The heads were decorative. I should have guessed that. I’d need to smash the thing to splinters, take away the internal mechanisms that allowed it to move. Only, it was fast. Not mindless either. It thought, planned.

Lisette, her face beaded with perspiration, methodically wove more threads in her growing web, forming a cage to keep the creature trapped, forcing it to face me. Only, she was in the cage too. The marion’s painted face turned toward her, and with no warning it started to move again, again reversing its direction so I couldn’t head it off. I caught sight of it in the shadows, flitting from one point of cover to the next, zig-zagging toward its prey.

It was strong enough to break her neck with one swift movement, and she didn’t have armor or the strength to wrestle with it like I did. I had no Art I could summon fast or accurately enough to hit it, not without destroying the whole room and possibly hurting Lisette. My techniques were all dramatic, flashy, destructive.

One might work, but if my timing was off even by inches…

I could kill Lisette too.

No time to deliberate. I propped my axe on a shoulder, crouched, let out a breath that emerged as a blur of heat. My aura woke from a fitful slumber. Restless as always, not entirely in tune with me, more like a second self with which I shared senses than a true extension of myself.

My soul. My passenger.

Once, I had to recall the words of my paladin oath to summon one of the Alder’s weapons. Now, I didn’t bother. I knew the shape I needed, recalled how it felt. I reached into that whirlpool of power, felt its fragmented chaos, demanded it heed me.

It did. Horns of burning glass erupted from my back and shoulders — once they’d looked like antlers, the proud crown of a stag, but now they more resembled the jagged prongs of a tortured ribcage, splayed open and sharp. A crude simulacrum of the original, but it would serve.

In the same moment a phantom wind ripped me across the room. It howled like the angry damned, that wind, a scream as intense as it was brief. The refectory’s furniture scattered, broke as I went through it, meaningless obstacles.

I hit the marion mere feet before it slammed into Lisette. We went forward together, into the wall next to a window, slamming into the stone with such force it cracked. A thunderbolt of impact went through my body, but my armor and the auratic force caging my charge prevented broken limbs. Dust rained down from the ceiling.

As my Art faded and I stepped back, the centipede slumped limply to the floor. Several of its torsos were cracked, exposing inner mechanisms of rope woven beneath the “skin” like some kind of muscle fiber. I’d broken something essential.

But I wouldn’t take chances. Summoning fire along my axe, I swung down. No less than four arms lifted to stop me, hands splayed like it were shielding its face from a bright light.

Faen Orgis went through the hands and into the body below. I didn’t stop there. Marions could get back up, would keep going until they physically couldn’t move anymore. They could be fragile, but that didn’t make them weak.

So I hit it again, and again, until it lay in smoldering pieces. Only then did I turn to Lisette.

“You alright?” I asked her after I’d caught my breath.

“That was close…” She let out a sigh of relief. “Too close. But where are the rest?”

There’d been more moving in the depths of the monastery. I listened, but heard nothing. No other nightmare had entered the room during the fight.

“These are war dolls,” I said. “Worse than the ones I fought in the capital. The others are probably returning to the puppeteer rather than tangling with us. They’re deadly, but their makers are usually cautious about throwing them away. Hard to make.”

Judging by its speed and strength, the bizarre design and its arsenal of blades, I could imagine a pack of these dismantling whole platoons of soldiers. If Lisette hadn’t been here, I’d have struggled with it more. A group would be capable of killing me.

Lisette made the realization at the same time I did. “The others.”

Emma, Hendry, and Penric were still outside and exposed to whatever was coming.

“There’s a puppeteer controlling these somewhere,” I said. “They’ll be nearby.”

“Evangeline?” Lisette asked even as she followed me from the refectory. “Like with that monk?”

I moved at a swift clip. “No. That was just crude necromancy, something she probably gained with her vampirism. A marionette can only be controlled by the one who made it, and it’s an advanced skill. I think it belonged to whoever she intended to meet here. Some kind of scout, or messenger.”

Pretty deadly messenger, I thought as we passed into the hall connecting the dormitory wing of the monastery to the chapel. I paused here and moved to the wall, where windows peeked out over the hill. Cautiously, keeping as much of my body hidden as I could, I looked outside.

Rows of gravestones in various shapes and sizes spread across the face of the hill. The curve of the fence bounding hallowed ground lay beyond those, and past the rolling grasslands and distant hills the sky bled red as the sun set.

I saw no sign of Morgause. She was a smart beast with a good ear for danger, so she’d probably run off into the countryside to wait for me to call her. No clear view of the village, either, though I had a sense of where it was.

Too quiet. If my squire and her companions were under attack, shouldn’t I be able to hear it from here?

Just as panic started to overtake my worry, Lisette spoke up from behind me. “They’re fine. Don’t worry.”

I thought it was just reassurance at first, but then the sound of drumming hooves echoed up the dirt path. Hendry appeared at the crest of the hill atop his stag. Emma came behind him on her demigryphon, with Penric sharing her saddle. Even as they thundered toward the monastery doors, the archer turned and loosed an arrow, the dart a streak of gold that vanished back down the path.

Within moments I’d marched through the ruin of the nave and out onto the hill, throwing the doors open just as the trio were dismounting. The sun was half sunk on the horizon, the light quickly fading.

“What’s behind you?” I asked without preamble.

“The villagers,” Emma told me as she hopped down off her bird-horse. “They were not very welcoming.”

“Something got here first,” Penric said. His silver eyes were scanning the path leading down to the hamlet. “Killed the locals, turned them into… Well.” He shrugged. “Me.”

“Not like you,” Hendry reassured the archer. Turning to me he said, “They were vicious strong, hard to kill. They ambushed us soon as the sun went low enough. They were hiding in their homes before that, creeping in cellars or attics to avoid the light.”

“Why aren’t they following us up here?” Emma asked with squinted eyes as she peered back the way the group had come.

“They will soon as that sun finishes setting,” I said. “Evangeline was here before us. Apparently, she’s Queen of the Banner now.”

Emma cursed. “Iron Wheels of Hell, that’s just wonderful. So what’s the play?”

“We should leave,” Lisette said. “This is enemy territory, and Evangeline is onto us. Undead villagers are bad enough, but what if she sends her knights?”

“Vampire knights sound like a bloody nightmare,” Penric agreed. “Not sure I got enough blessed arrows for that.”

He was already fitting another gold-threaded missile into his longbow while simultaneously watching the road. I glanced back at the monastery. Where had the other marions gone? Were they waiting for the sun to go down, for the people from the hamlet to swarm up the hill and give them their cover to kill us? Or had they fled back to their puppeteer as I’d guessed before, who might have not anticipated us and decided to play it safe?

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“Evangeline expected someone to meet her proxy here,” I said. “I want to know who.”

“If we aren’t gone by full dark,” Emma said, “then we aren’t going anywhere. There are a lot of monsters down below waiting for it to get shady enough to swarm up here. We’d have to barricade ourselves inside the monastery and wait for sunrise, unless you think our chimera can outrun the dead?”

“Staying here will give Evangeline time to send reinforcements,” Penric added. “I’d say we cut and run, boss, if you want my opinion.”

I glanced at the archer. “Where’s your cockatrice?”

“Dead.” He shook his head. “Got dragged down into a well by something bad I never got a full look at.”

“This is a nest,” Emma told me. “We should go, make another plan.”

“Hide in the chapel?” Penric suggested. “Hallowed ground might give us an edge, though I’ll have to stay outside.”

He said this lightly, but I knew it wasn’t a light thing. As a dyghoul, Penric could only enter holy ground if he were invited by its keepers, which would compromise that same protection.

“No need to self-sacrifice, soldier.” I tapped my axe against a pauldron, the impacts producing a light tink-tink sound as I thought. “The chapel is desecrated anyway.”

Penric cursed. “Fuck. Well, then we go.”

They were right. Only, I couldn’t let this turn into a dead lead.

I looked to the road. Some light remained in the sky, but not much. Maybe ten minutes, and it would be night and there would be no excuse for the dead to shy from abandoning their dens. Every second counted.

Before I could reach a decision, a sudden sound pierced the dusk. A high-pitched scream, human, and young. It came from the direction of the hamlet.

“Do they think we’re idiots?” Emma scoffed. “No one’s alive down there! Could they be more obvious!?”

The others seemed to agree. I considered a moment, then started walking to the edge of the hill.

“Boss?” Penric said.

Emma sounded affronted. “Alken, I just said we are not idiots!”

“Be ready to retreat back to the chapel,” I said without stopping. I would not leave this place empty handed. Whoever Evangeline meant to meet here, they were close. I would know who they were, even if it meant luring them out of hiding.

“There are a great number of vampires below,” Vicar muttered from my left shoulder. “Not particularly powerful ones, but enough to be a danger to you.”

“We won’t make it away on our chimera,” I whispered back. “They waited until near dark to make a move, so they could trap us. The dead will catch us no matter how much of a lead we have, mounts or not. Especially if Penric has to double-up on someone’s saddle. We’ll get dragged down if we try to flee.”

“Then why not tell the others?” The crowfriar asked.

“I don’t want to demoralize them. Best to let them think we have options, rather than telling them we’re trapped.”

“Cruel. And wise.”

My right hand held my axe loosely out to my side as I strode forward to the edge of the hill, where I could look down the path to where the hamlet lay nestled in its shadow. Standing halfway between the top of the hill and the village, where a small copse of sickly looking apple trees provided shade from the sinking sun, were the villagers.

They were lined up below the canopy, perhaps thirty of them, bloodless faces staring back at me with an unsettling lack of something, some fundamental element that’d been replaced by an empty hunger.

They looked more sad than threatening. Dirty, with threadbare clothes and features that’d been haggard even before their untimely deaths. This had been a poor place.

Sympathize with them all I might, I wouldn’t be reasoning with these. Another power hung over them. I could feel it, distant but potent, directing the attention of the mass and restraining its hunger, just barely. Without that, and the dimming tinge of yellow rays across the grass, they would already be swarming the hill.

In the line of dead faces were families. Children. I saw the one who’d probably screamed before, and as I’d suspected she wasn’t alive or a hostage. They just wanted my attention.

“I’m here,” I called down the hill. Showing them my axe I said, “You try this slope, and you’ll feel this. You’re all freshly dead, so I imagine you haven’t tasted soul fire before. Trust me, you don’t want to.”

They weren’t mindless automatons. They understood me, I could tell by the way their attention focused. Taking a deep breath, I willed auratic fire to bloom over Faen Orgis’s blade. The vampires flinched back, some throwing their hands up to cover their faces like they’d been hit by a flash of sunlight. There were hisses, growls, doggish whines. The whole mass cringed like one body.

I let the fire recede without fully going out. A whole village of vampires. If these got out into the world, spread, it could be an epidemic. Older hemophages tended to be cautious and careful. They were experienced enough to know there were things that could and would destroy them, and that too many of their own kind brought competition for blood they couldn’t afford.

But not these. They would slaughter whole communities, make more of themselves, become an uncontrollable tide.

Perhaps Evangeline intended that. The Alder Table had dealt with this kind of thing in the past. Would-be dark lords would let their creatures loose in neighboring territories, keeping the outside world busy and wounded while they prepared to do worse.

“Are you here, Evangeline!?” I called down. “Looking through these?”

To my quiet horror, a young girl stepped forward. She was a pitiful thing, with a small dress covered in dirt stains and showing bare patches of loose thread. She clutched a sad little doll in her arms, and her skin showed black patches of frostbite.

But her voice wasn’t a child’s. “I am here, Headsman. You and your fellows are trapped. What shall you do?”

“I want to make a deal.”

“Alken!” Lisette hissed from behind me. “What are you doing!?”

I replied without taking my eyes off the undead horde. “Trying to get us out of this.”

“So we are fighting?” Emma asked, her brusque tone crackling with tension.

Instead of answering, I watched Evangeline’s puppet body for any tell. She stared back with a curious expression.

“I’m listening,” the frostbitten girl said sweetly.

For another few minutes, at least, until it’s dark and you can send your creatures up here to tear us apart. Aloud I said, “You and I don’t have to be enemies. I didn’t come to this realm to take your head, as I told you in the monastery.”

“And you expect me to believe that?” Evangeline called back. “Please, don’t take me for a fool! The Briar King? You expect me to believe you’re here for that drivel!? The Emperor sent you to punish me for slaughtering that Brightling piglet!”

She hadn’t believed a word of my story inside. Propping the head of my axe on the grass and leaning on the weapon, I watched her and waited, acting unconcerned by the sinking sun framing our standoff.

The vampire child pursed its lips after a moment of thought. “You said you want to make a deal. I know you’re just stalling, but I’m so fascinated to hear what comes out of your mouth next! By all means, fascinate

me.”

I could be accused of being slow sometimes. I often put the facts together after it was too late to do much with them, got taken off guard, failed to see the hidden connections that might enable me to avoid danger before it tried to rip my jugular out. But sometimes, I did use my brain.

Did he send you? Do you know how long you’ve kept her waiting?

Too late! They are already here!

And the final oddity — who sent battle constructs to conduct a meeting?

Evangeline didn’t control those war marions. They also weren’t responsible for killing the monks. The villagers were. Probably, after they’d been turned, the monks hid inside and then the undead tricked or coerced them into an invitation, which resulted in the state I found the monastery in. This happened relatively recently, well after the Briar King paid his visit. If he’d been the one to wreck the nave, the monks would have had weeks to clean it up. Perhaps some of the damage did come from him, such as the ruined shrine, but not all of it.

When Rysanthe arrived and what happened from there, I couldn’t say, but those marions could have taken both me and Lisette if they’d attacked in concert, and they didn’t. Why?

Because I wasn’t their target. They weren’t expecting me.

They were there to kill Evangeline.

She wasn’t far, couldn’t be — I didn’t know everything vampires were capable of, but suspected it would take godly power to control her minions so effortlessly if she sat a hundred miles away inside her keep.

“There were assassins inside the church,” I said and gestured to the building behind me. “I think they were for you, Your Majesty.”

The vampire narrowed its eyes. The sun sank lower. Only minutes left.

“You are mistaken,” Evangeline said.

“Really?” I panned my gaze across the bleak countryside. “Then where are your mysterious allies? Marions don’t fear daylight. With your vampires and their puppets, even I probably wouldn’t survive it, not in open ground like this.”

Hard to read my opposite through a puppet body. Did uncertainty stall her response? Did she consult with some other party wherever she hid?

And where was she hiding? Not far, but probably somewhere difficult to reach.

I didn’t know if any of my guesses were right. They were just guesses, hunches, and this was a gamble. But I couldn’t afford to waste a whole night being sieged on this hill.

It was obvious Evangeline didn’t trust the third party, or she wouldn’t have hidden herself like this. I also suspected that the undead villagers were exactly what the marions were intended to be — a trap. This was some kind of parlay in which both factions schemed to do away with the other.

Finally, after an aggravating wait that must have cost me at least two minutes, Evangeline replied. “And what do you propose, Lord Headsman?”

“Parlay,” I said in a flash of inspiration. “The enemy of my enemy. My quarry is long gone, so let us go and I’ll cause you no more trouble while you deal with… whatever this is. Unless you can afford to contend with this group that wants to kill you and the Headsman of Seydis.”

“A compelling argument!” Evangeline gestured toward the gaunt faces of Fife’s inhabitants. “Only, I have the numbers to kill you right here and end a future problem once and for all. Why would I not take that chance, pray tell? To end the famed Alken Hewer this night?”

“Because I’ll win,” I told her.

Silence. Evangeline’s hidden glare felt like cold air on my scalp, prickling and angry.

“I’ll cut through these spawn,” I continued after waiting a beat, “and then I’ll find you. I know you’re close. Close enough you won’t get away from me, and that will be the end of Evangeline Ark. I slew the demons Raath El Kur and Yith. I beat Siriks Sontae, Issachar, Ruben Silvering and his sons, and a Vicar of the Credo Ferrum.”

I showed her my axe, lifting it high. “This took the head of Rhan Harrower, Lord-Commander of the Recusant Houses, and a hundred others sentenced to death. I met the Gatebreaker face to face twice and lived. Do you think for one moment, Evangeline, that I would bother with diplomacy if I were here for you? I am the Headsman of Seydis, Faen of the Choir Concilium, Knight of the Alder Table. I do not beg for mercy from my prey.”

A wind stirred across the hill. Maybe just coincidence, or perhaps a response from the land. We were both powers of the land, me and Evangeline, her a queen and a damned soul and me a tarnished paladin. Just like at the tournament in Markham’s city, the world took notice of such confrontations, responded to them like they produced their own gravity.

Only a sliver of yellow remained on the horizon. Moments left.

The little girl hugged her doll close and lowered her head, so uncombed hair fell over her face like a veil. Beneath, I saw a flash of sharp teeth as Evangeline grimaced.

“You should not have come here, Hewer. This land belongs to wolves, now.”

I’d intimidated her, just as intended. A mistake, the wrong approach. I’d gambled that she would act with the wisdom of a predator, one that would retreat if it felt endangered and wait for another opportunity.

But Evangeline wasn’t just a vampire. She had the strength of will to claim a throne, control all these lesser undead, and the pride of a knight in addition to it. Her carnivore instincts might be screaming for her to cut her losses, but she wasn’t a slave to her nature.

I’d misjudged her.

The sun set. Shadow fell over the world, and Evangeline gave her command.

“Kill them.”

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