CHAPTER 888: A HUMBLE SERVANT (PART ONE)

As darkness fell over Raek Village, Acolyte Holm made his way through the crowds of common folk with a calm, steady pace that allowed the crowd to part around him rather than forcing his way through.

His pure white robes were trimmed with only the slightest bit of gold at the stiff collar, reflecting his low status within the Church as a whole. No matter how devout he thought himself to be, Holm had never managed more than a minor miracle of light, and the Church had long ago consigned him to the very edge of the frontier in a village too small and too poor to demand a real Priest.

At first, he’d taken his assignment to Raek as a punishment little different from exile, but over the years he’d been here, he came to see the unique advantages of being in a village this small. In Lothian City, he had been one of more than a hundred acolytes in the great temple. He walked very small, kept his lips tightly sealed, and only offered up an opinion when it was asked for.

Out here, however, he wasn’t ’just an acolyte,’ he was the direct representative of the Church and the Holy Lord of Light. There was no one here who could command him, and when his predecessor returned to Lothian City to retire more than a decade ago, Holm had become one of Sir Rhodri’s advisors, wielding considerable power within the village.

Now, he moved with a steady, stately pace, his hands clasped behind his back in the manner of Church officials, chin raised to project authority despite his modest stature. The crowd instinctively parted before his white robes, some bowing their heads respectfully while others merely stepped aside with uncomfortable shuffles. His dull brown hair, increasingly streaked with gray, caught the flickering torchlight as he surveyed the packed hall with narrowed eyes, listening to the whispers of the common folk as they waited for their lord to address them.

"Did you hear?" One villager whispered to another. "Sir Carwyn bought up all of Master Kraki’s ale to give it to the demons! We’re not going to have a drop of it to drink all winter!"

"Lucky bastard," the villager next to him cursed. "I hear Sir Carwyn paid him in gold instead of silver. I’ll be drinking Myra’s home brew this winter," he groused, thinking of his wife’s ale that always tasted more of herbs than alcohol. "But if that fat brewer thinks he can get gold for selling to demons instead of tin snips and silver from us then I’ll be stuck with Myra’s brew long after!"

It would be impossible to host the entire village within the great hall, but each household had sent a representative to listen to Sir Carwyn explain why he’d brought demons within the walls of the village just before dark, going so far as to evict people from their homes in order to make way for the evil creatures, and more than a hundred people packed in to a hall that rarely hosted more than thirty or forty.

As Acolyte Holm worked his way forward through the crowd, there were even more concerning whispers drifting through the tightly packed great hall.

"They say that Sir Rhodri dueled the Demon Knight and fought him to a draw," a lantern jawed man who smelled of straw and horses said. "They even say that the demons came here to learn how to fight from Sir Rhodri."

"I saw it when they came through the gates," a young man, barely old enough to need to shave the stubble from his jaw every morning piped in. "The Demon Knight was showing off the dent in his helm from Sir Rhodri’s hammer. Sir Rhodri could have killed him if he wanted to, but he didn’t!"

The Acolyte’s faintly lined eyes narrowed and his lips tightened when he heard about the former lord of their village sparing the life of a powerful demon that he clearly could have slain if he’d been willing to. He’d hoped that Sir Rhodri, as a man who earned glory slaying demons in the War of Inches, would be an ally he could count on in the confrontation to come, but he feared that even a knight covered in many years of glory wasn’t immune to the corrupting influence of the demons.

Holm had gone to see the demons when they entered the village and he’d seen the horror of them with his own eyes. An insidious serpent demon posed as a knight to pervert the great respect and devotion the people held toward the guardians the Holy Lord of Light had put in place to protect their people from the dangers of the world was a threat unlike any the Acolyte had ever prepared to face.

Already, he had seen the old master of the village, Sir Rhodri, giving way to the ’Demon Knight’, treating it like a brother in arms and giving it lessons in fighting humans! Clearly, the serpent was so insidious that it had poisoned the heart of Sir Carwyn’s father within a handful of hours.

But compared to the Demon Knight, Acolyte Holm was even more concerned about the claw demon who had somehow made himself appear ’cuddly’ and soft in order to appeal to the children of the village. It had even gone so far as to learn the king’s common tongue in order to corrupt the youth who were too innocent to understand the deceit in the words that spilled from its muzzle.

Now, Holm had come to the village gathering, prepared to speak out with fiery words to wake the village from the heretical spell that their leaders had fallen under. He might only be an acolyte without the ability to summon holy flames or heal wounds like a true priest, but here in Raek Village, he was the true representative of the Holy Lord of Light. The people would have to listen to him when he warned them of the evils of consorting with demons.

The hot words died on his lips, however, when he reached the front of the great hall where a seat should be waiting for him only to find all of the chairs occupied, and the one that should have been his, sitting directly beside Sir Carwyn, was occupied by the Demon Knight, while the claw demon hovered protectively behind the knights like a puppet master, ready to tug at heartstrings with its sharpened claws.

The other chairs were occupied by familiar figures, from the white haired Sir Rhodri who took a seat next to Sir Carwyn’s heavily pregnant wife to the weathered figure of the village purser, Dyfad who had barely escaped death at the hands of the demons when they captured Sir Carwyn, each of the men who were present were vital to managing the affairs of the village.

"Where is my seat?" Acolyte Holm said in genuine surprise as he realized there wasn’t a single empty chair at the head of the great hall. He hadn’t just been moved from his position closest to Sir Carwyn, it seemed like he’d been replaced entirely by the Demon Knight.

"It can’t be that you’re denying the Holy Lord of Light a place in the affairs of the village," Holm said as he narrowed his eyes at the young knight who had stood to greet him. "Can it, Sir Carwyn?"