Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

“Catrin?”

I stared into the grave pit. Like an idiot, I waited for a response, my hand outstretched as if I expected she might suddenly reach out from the darkness and grasp it.

She had grasped it. I had her, and then…

“No. No, no, no, no, no, no.”

The voice didn’t sound like my own. It came out as a pathetic whine, my head shaking from side to side. A dull pressure throbbed in my chest.

“No. Cat, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…”

This wasn’t happening. This was another bad dream, a nightmare. I was still in that hateful forest with the dead, with the Shadow, being tormented by my worst fears.

I was half right. I did kneel there among the dead, and they were all too happy to gloat as the mist spilled into the crypt to swirl around me.

“Did it again, crusader.”

“Sent it right back into the dark, into the fire, where it belongs…”

Faces formed in the mist, stretched and bloated, smiles like putrid wounds leering at me. I barely saw them, barely felt aware of the world at all. I could only see Catrin’s face, staring at me with confusion and horror.

Aureflame still flickered around my shoulders, tongues of it dancing between my fingers. It looked brighter, and felt calmer, as though satisfied at work well done. Instead of biting me, its warmth soothed as it once had.

My left hand clenched into a fist. “Go away.”

I tried to dismiss the fire as I had a thousand times before. It didn’t even fight me this time, but obeyed easily, retreating back into my flesh to leave the crypt dark and cold.

But it wasn’t gone. I could still feel it inside my skin, along with every beat of my heart. I placed my hand against the cool metal links of my armor, but it wouldn’t stop, would not slow.

“Alken?”

My eyes flicked to the crypt door. Emma stood there, framed in mist and moonlight. She was injured, leaning heavily against the doorframe. Blood dripped down her right arm to patter against the ground, her dark hair clung to her sweating face, and her sword hung limp in her left hand.

She stared at me, then at the empty grave. Her eyes widened.

“Please,” Lurching to my feet, I took a step toward my squire, toward the disciple of Bloody Nath. I pointed at the grave. “You have power over shadows too. Open it again. She’s down there, down below. Open it.”

“I…” Emma was shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Alken, what happened?”

“She’s down there. With him. I almost had her, I swear, but—”

I stumbled, almost falling. My heart was beating too fast. I couldn’t get it under control.

“She’s trapped?” Emma’s face drained of color.

“Open it!” I pleaded. “Use some spell, some Briar magic. Call your godmother if you have to, but please.”

“I can’t.” Regret crawled over the girl’s features. “I know some glamour and other tricks, Alken, but not—”

I spun away from her. “Nath! Eanor!? I know you can hear me up on your mountains!”

Pressing a hand to my beating chest, I bared my teeth in an animal rictus and spat into the shadows. “I have bled for you all these years. I swore to give the rest of my life to this fucking thing!”

I lifted the axe up to the moonlight, feeling its hateful branch dig into my palm. “My life. Not hers. She did not deserve this, did not earn it. You saved me that day, I know you can intervene. If there was ever a time, it’s now.”

I took a step toward the light. “Open the way. Let me save her.”

Even the ghosts fell silent long enough to wait for an answer. When none came, they hissed with laughter. A soft clink filled the room as my shoulders slumped, letting my weapon’s heavy head strike the floor in limp fingers. Emma did not interrupt with more questions. She stood in the doorway, watching me.

My eyes went down to the axe. Was it possible?

Lurching toward the grave, I knelt and held my weapon over the blackness. Baring my teeth, I focused on the place I’d just left, imagined myself sinking into it. I forced myself to see Catrin as she’d been in that last moment. Painful as it was, I needed to form a connection.

The axe, and my hand, sunk into the darkness. I felt something give, along with a flash of stabbing cold, and then—

Emma slammed into me. She hit me hard, sending us both into a tumble. Before I even had the thought to defend myself, she was poised above me with a knee pressed into my sternum and a hand trapping my right wrist against the damp stone of the crypt floor.

“Get off!” I snarled into her face. “Let me go to her.”

“You’ll never reach her, you fool!” Emma answered my fury with her own, her aristocratic features turned near fiendish in the dim light, her amber eyes bright. “I know enough about the Wend to know that. The way is closed. You go into that pit, you’ll just end up lost in the cracks and dead within minutes. The road she used is for the dead. The living cannot touch it.”

I could still feel the onset of frostbite on my fingers. Even still, I shook my head in denial. “I saw through it,” I told her desperately. “I was able to reach her.”

“A temporary breach,” Emma insisted. “A window, nothing more. You open the way again, it might go a thousand other places, if it goes anywhere at all. Think, Alken. I learned half this lore from you and Maxim.”

She dug her knee into my chest, as though the pain might wake me out of my madness. It did, somewhat, and after she’d made her point Emma heaved herself up. She nearly stumbled back to the floor before making it to one of the pillars holding up the half-intact roof, breathing hard for nearly a minute before seeming to steady.

I stood as well. My lips moved, and words came out, though I heard myself as though at a great distance and did not think about what I said. “You’re injured.”

I looked at Emma, who stared at me with a mixture of apprehension and residual anger. “What happened? The others, are they still fighting?”

Emma took a deep breath. “These things attacked us. Some kind of soldier, but they did not seem normal. They appeared out of the mist, like they were formed from it. Undead, I think.”

The ghouls. Mistwalkers. I had glimpsed them before going back to help Catrin.

“They are gone now,” Emma continued. “You should…” She had to catch her breath again. “You should return to the group. There’s someone else here. Better if you hear the whole thing at once.”

“I can’t just leave her,” I said dully. My eyes went back to the grave. “I brought her here. I let her go through with this.”

You trapped her in there.

“And if there is a way to help her, it won’t be done standing here over a hole in the ground.” Emma took a step forward. “We need to go. There is still danger.”

Her callous honesty infuriated me more in that moment than it had in all the months we’d known one another. Yet, I had enough self-awareness left to know she mostly just wanted to get me out of that room. The shadows and mist boiled with the dead, their wispy fingers clawing at the hem of my cloak. Their voices had become an unintelligible cacophony. Rarely had they dared to draw so close to me.

They filled the grave pit too, beckoning me. Some of them whispered in Catrin’s voice. Emma had probably just saved my life from a very foolish act.

I barely noticed them. Already I was mapping out the image of that subterranean city in my mind, trying to think of who in Garihelm might be able to show me a path down there. Architects? Scholars? Graverobbers perhaps, or even smugglers. I knew some were brave or foolish enough to stray into the depths.

Catrin was smart, and resourceful. She could hold out until I reached her, perhaps even find a way to escape on her own, and—

The image of Yith’s stabbing beak punching through her shoulder flashed through my mind. Cold sweat dripped down my temple.

“Come out of there, Alken.” Emma held out a bloodstained hand, still weeping from a cut palm. She had moved back to the doorway. “Please.”

I followed her out of the mausoleum in a daze. She limped badly, but refused my help. As we passed over the still body of the Marion, her eyes went to it. She didn’t miss the golden-brown robes it still wore.

“Emil,” I explained. “One of the twins was watching us through him.”

She said nothing to that, instead leading me to the cemetery square in a dull silence where the battered members of my lance waited. Whatever victory they had won, it had been a pyrrhic one. Mallet lay against the side of a statue plinth, one leg stretched out as Lisette wove her threads of aura through his sliced ankle. His teeth were clenched, his face pale as a ghost’s.

The others looked hardly better. Penric sat on the steps of a structure much like the one I’d just left. His axe was broken, his crossbow resting in his lap, and someone had bandaged his head up tightly so only his nose, mouth, and one eye peered out. Hendry seemed uninjured, his helmet doffed and left on a patch of lichen while he helped tend to Mallet.

Beatriz sat in a fetal position near Penric, hugging her knees close to her chest. Her spear and shield lay on the ground at her side. She stared at nothing, her eyes blank and distant.

Dead or dying ghouls lay scattered across the square. Their kind do not die easily, and even dismembered and brutalized I could still see their bodies twitching. A severed arm crawled across the path before us, blindly groping for its owner. Emma hissed and stabbed down at it, her sword pinning it in place. The limb went still.

That drew the attention of the others. Mallet, sweating and bloody, glared at me. “Where the fuck were you?” He demanded.

Instead of answering the man, I looked to the figure who stepped into the square just after Emma and I did. Tall, clad in green-and-brass scales and rich cloth woven in autumnal colors, the Ironleaf Knight met my gaze in the same moment he sheathed his sword.

“Jocelyn.” Unconsciously, my grip tightened on my axe. “What are you doing here?”

“He’s the one I mentioned,” Emma muttered at my side. “He appeared after the ghouls. Saved our lives, probably.”

The tourney knight stopped as all eyes went to him. Tall, lean, with fair features on the verge of being effeminate, he spoke in the soft alto I had come to associate with him.

“I was following you,” he told me. “From the time you left the palace, I covered myself in glamour and kept close. I am very good at moving unseen when I wish.”

I didn’t particularly care about his skill at stealth. “Why?” I growled.

Jocelyn blinked, but seemed otherwise unfazed by my tone and all the death around him. “Because I wanted to know what you were up to. I was there when the Emperor ordered you to find our enemy, and thought perhaps I might be of help. I’ve also been wanting to speak with you for some days.”

“Then you should have just spoken with me,” I snapped. “This is not a very good time to be stalking me, Ser Jocelyn. It’s a good way to make me think you are my enemy.”

The knight frowned, as though confused why I would be angry. “I am not your enemy. At least, I do not believe so.”

He suddenly tilted his head, as though listening to something. “This is not a good place to speak. The Legion is here, and they can move through the mist freely. This was just a scouting party. I believe there are many more, scattered across the countryside beyond the city.”

“Then we should get behind walls,” Penric said in a tired voice, heaving himself to his feet.

The Ironleaf didn’t seem to agree. “We are too far. There is a hunger to the fog this night. We need to find shelter, and quickly.”

The knowledge of lurking danger and the fact there were more people I needed to get to safety, and the mystery of Ser Jocelyn, tugged at my attention. There was still a battle to be fought, enemies nearby, and I needed to keep focused.

Keeping focused was the only way to stop myself from breaking down. Or abandoning all of this and descending down into the Undercity. Even still, I resented the distraction.

“You are saying they’re guarding the ways into the city?” I asked. “Or even in the city?”

“The gargoyles would not have let that many undead over the walls,” Lisette said. She looked haggard, but seemed to have saved Mallet’s leg. Faint golden lines stitched his severed tendon, visible where his pant leg had been pulled up.

“I believe they all went under the walls,” Jocelyn said. “Or around them. This fog blew in over the bay.”

His tone was apologetic, as though he regretted disagreeing with the cleric. “The eyes of the stonewardens are not infallible, and they mostly only protect their chosen nests. The churches, castles, and some other abodes.”

He was right. I cursed. “You’re saying there’s an army gathering in the city?”

“Not quite an army,” the knight assured me. “The Mistwalker Company only has about four hundred members. Um…”

He glanced around at all the twitching, undead corpses. “Sixteen less, now.”

“Enough for a coup,” Emma said warningly. “We need to warn the Emperor.”

I closed my eyes, thinking the problem through. It wasn’t easy, pulling myself out of the burning chasm I’d glimpsed inside the crypt, but I did so with the same kind of effort with which one rips their hand away from clinging ice.

“No. They’re not here to attack the city, not yet. There are over a thousand knights here for the tourney, and that’s just a small portion of Garihelm’s defenses. Besides, they couldn’t attack the Fulgurkeep. The gargoyles would rip ghoul intruders apart well before a single Storm Knight was even aware of the threat. There are other defenses, too.”

It did confirm something I’d already been suspicious of. The Mistwalkers, led by their gluttonous captain, were also allied with the Vykes.

“We must go,” Jocelyn insisted. His voice was calm, but I felt tension in him even from a distance.

“Where?” I asked.

“There is a safe place nearby,” the Ironleaf said. “An old friend of mine is there, waiting for us. He asked me to invite you to a meeting this night, but then all of this happened.”

He frowned at the small battlefield the cemetery had become. “Perhaps it is fate?”

“It is not fate.” All eyes went to me, shocked by my vehemence, but I didn’t care. Holding Jocelyn’s gaze, I spoke in a low voice that hid none of my anger, or pain. “None of this had to happen this way.”

The man’s calm hazel eyes studied me a moment. “Perhaps not. Will you go with me?”

I studied my diminished group. No one argued. Mallet glared at me as though all of this were my fault, and I could hardly blame him. Penric just looked old and tired, Hendry uncertain, and Lisette thoughtful. Beatriz acted as though none of us were there, her eyes fixed on the ground.

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Emma used her sword like a cane at my side, barely standing. It was clear to me she’d fought hardest of them all, and suffered most for it.

I had used them badly. Working alone had been so much simpler.

“Show us,” I told Jocelyn.

As we left the cemetery, the shades gathered in my wake to condemn me. If any of my companions saw the faces in the mist, or heard their whispers, they did not comment on it.

Jocelyn of Ekarleon led us to a small coastal wood not far from the cemetery. Our going was laborious thanks to our injured. Even with Lisette’s tending, Mallet needed both Hendry and Penric to help him walk. Beatriz lagged behind, moving in an almost drunken stupor.

I had to force myself to move forward. Each step I put between me and the cemetery felt like a betrayal.

Penric had asked what happened to Emil, and Emma told the group what I’d discovered in curt, simple words. Mallet spat out a curse, while Beatriz just squeezed her eyes shut.

Only Hendry asked about Catrin. When I refused to respond, he fell quiet. Emma kept close to my side, as though wary that further questions might be a threat to me.

Or that I might be a threat to myself.

We were watched from the curling fog. It hung low over the fields beyond the city, shrouding everything but the moons and stars high above. Thick and languid, it seemed to leer hungrily at us.

“There are faces in the mist,” Beatriz said after a time.

Mistwalkers. I tightened my grip on my axe, ready to defend us, and vent some of the ugly feeling twisted into my gut.

“They won’t attack with both me and Ser Alken here,” Jocelyn said from the front of the group. “Not until more of them gather.”

I could see the shapes of armored legionaries here and there, appearing and vanishing as the shape of the brume changed. Human in appearance, the way they seemed to exude their own pale light and the wrongness in their faces made them seem unreal, like some afterimage recalled in a nightmare.

The aureflame stirred inside me, ready to reveal itself and lash out against the evil it sensed. I kept it leashed with ungentle resolve, like pressing a hand down on the head of an overeager hound.

As we entered the forest, the night seemed to clear up. The moonlight grew brighter, the mist thinner, and the stink of graves and mud gave way to clean dew and wildflowers. Everything became crisp, bright, and welcoming. I could hear a stream trickling nearby, and soft wind rustling the young trees.

Shapes moved in the peripheral of my vision. They weren’t the furtive, threatening aspects of shades or ghouls, but the winking lights of Wil-O’ Wisps. The eyes of other curious creatures watched as well.

I felt a familiar sense of ease, one I hadn’t known for some time. Not since my last stay at the Fane.

I shoved that sensation away. There was no time for feeling safe or content. I needed to keep myself focused.

“What is this place?” Mallet asked, frowning at the forest as though unsure whether to feel at ease or threatened.

“It’s an elfwood,” I told the group without stopping or taking my eyes off the Ironleaf’s back.

“I thought the Recusants burned them all during the siege,” Penric muttered. “I remember watching the fires.”

“They missed a few,” Jocelyn told us without turning. “Only a few, and none larger than this.”

We soon moved from the shadow of coastal trees into a wide clearing. At its center was a babbling brook, fed by runoff from the ranges to the south. I could smell sea air, and knew the brook probably drained into the bay.

Sitting on a cleft of stone beside the water was a figure in the brown robes of an itinerant monk. He looked sagely and old, but as we drew closer I made out the gleam of silver thread in his hair, the slight muzzle of his face, and the hint of cloven hooves beneath the robe’s hem.

Oradyn Fen Harus stood to face us. “Welcome,” the elf sang. “Welcome, my friends. Be at ease here. No Thing of Darkness shall intrude into this place while I guard it.”

The group made a small camp by the brook while I moved aside to speak with the elf and the glorysworn. The Corpse Moon hung high and distant, its light almost drowned out by the ascending Living Moon. Fen Harus seemed distracted by that larger shape, his eyes tracing the patches of emerald along its surface.

“What are you two doing out here?” I asked without preamble. Focusing on the oradyn I added, “I thought you wanted to meet in the morning.”

Slowly, Fen Harus turned his alien eyes back to me. “Ah, yes. That was my intention, but the situation escalated. I sensed movement from our foes, and asked the good knight to shadow you. I believed it might be of some benefit.”

I had to swallow my immediate bitter response — that it had been of no benefit, not where it mattered most. If I’d had any help from the Sidhe, perhaps she wouldn’t have needed to—

I took a deep breath to calm myself, then looked to the serene Ironleaf. “You probably saved the lives of my companions. You have my thanks.”

Ser Jocelyn just inclined his head, his eyes heavily lidded as though in distracted thought. He turned as another approached our group. I caught Emma’s eye, saw the defiant glint in it, and decided not to order her to go rest. She still limped badly, but had a fresh batch of Lisette’s magic sewing her back together.

“Oradyn, Ser Jocelyn, this is my squire, Emma Orley.”

“Orley?” Fen Harus blinked, but otherwise made no comment. The pair both gave the girl respectful bows as she hovered at my side. I got the message. I’m part of this, and I will know what is discussed.

No doubt she also still worried over me. Perhaps she was right to. I wasn’t certain I knew myself just then.

Forcing myself to focus, I asked the most pressing question on my mind. “You both knew about the Mistwalkers being here before I did. How?”

It was the knight who answered first. “I have faced the Lost Legion before. My warband fought in the continent, and there is rarely a war there in which the corpse feasters do not appear. There were signs I recognized. Odd horns sounding in the distance, werelights, a quality to the fog.”

He trailed off. I stared at him, a slow realization dawning.

“You are a paladin,” I said. “One of the True Knights.”

Jocelyn only smiled softly. “Not an Alder Knight, I am afraid, or of any particular order of great note.”

I had long known there were blessed knights besides those of the Alder Table. Renuart Kross had passed himself as one before I had discovered his true nature. Varied in both what abilities they might cultivate and the vows they take, they all share some commonalities with my own powers. Sensing wrongness in the world, gaining their strength from the oaths they swear, and possessing an arsenal of magical techniques are the most common features.

In our few encounters, I had sensed something about the glorysworn mercenary. Jocelyn had possessed an uncanny aspect, like his soul was too large for his flesh and reached out to fill the world around him, much as I exuded a beckoning warmth. Or an abjuring one, as the case may be.

“Do you know why they’re here?” I asked the pair.

Jocelyn frowned and glanced at Fen Harus before speaking. “The Mistwalkers subside off war. They seek to feast on the aura of strong foes, usually shadowing beleaguered armies and claiming their dead, like jackals or crows.”

“If they are here,” Fen Harus stated, “then it is because they sense there will be a great amount of death to feast on soon. They are drawn by the very portent of war.”

And there was one beginning, quietly and insidiously, here in the capital of the Accorded Realms. No doubt Issachar, captain of the Mistwalker Company, knew of Talsyn’s plans.

“There is worse news,” Fen Harus told me. “Tell him, Ser Jocelyn.”

The Ironleaf met my eyes. “House Sontae may be allied with the Vykes.”

Emma frowned. “Why would they do that? They were attacked the night of the Culling, or so goes the rumor. House Vyke was behind those attacks, so why would they send an assassin after their own ally?”

“The situation in the peninsula is, and always has been, complicated.” Fen Harus folded his hands into the sleeves of his monkish robes. “The Princedoms of Cymrinor have rarely been unified. Their civil war lasted for near three years after the Accord was signed, only ending when Prince Grantius of House Hyriates quelled all protestation to his rule.”

I had heard some rumors of bloodshed in Cymrinor during my travels after the Fall, but I had never strayed into that embattled northern realm in my life.

“One of those clans Grantius Hyriates dismantled was the Sontaes,” Fen Harus continued. “Quite brutally, by my understanding. Siriks was a child at the time, and taken as a hostage against those allies of his family that remained. The last one to hold that storied name, a means to revive it, and also a threat. Should anyone act against the First Prince, House Sontae will be snuffed out.”

The elf paced to the side of the brook as he spoke, his eyes dropping to the water to study his own reflection. He looked different in the water. Brighter, younger, and larger. I had to tear my eyes away, knowing it wasn’t safe to look too long.

“Young Siriks is the leader of the ambassadorial delegation from the Princedoms,” Fen Harus explained. “A subtly veiled insult, to send a hostage from a dead clan to represent their nation.”

“So this Grantius fellow is also very arrogant,” Emma noted.

The oradyn inclined his head in agreement. “The young lord desires revenge, as would anyone in his position, but House Hyriates is very powerful. More than that, the Accord will not use force of arms to dethrone High Prince Grantius. The Emperor desires peace, and already he is forced to take precautions against Talsyn.”

And he’s planning a crusade on Seydis. No, I highly doubted Markham would be willing to send troops against the tyrant of Cymrinor.

“It is my belief that the assassin who stole into the Cymrinorean embassy that night was none other than Prince Calerus himself.” Fen Harus looked up from the water. “That he was there to display his strength to an embittered young man who desires war from a nation unwilling to give it to him.”

“Both Calerus and Siriks are planning to participate in the tournament,” I thought aloud. “You believe they intend to cooperate?”

“If either gains the prize of victory,” Jocelyn interjected, “then we may as well consider it Talsyn’s victory.”

I stared at him. “You know about the tournament’s prize?”

Jocelyn nodded. “Besides glory and wealth, you mean? Yes, I am aware of the High Art the victor may claim. I was told of it by the Sidhe.”

A small smile touched his lips. “I intend to claim it myself.”

Sardonically, I wondered how many more people knew about this great ritual I’d had to risk my life against an ancient, likely malignant sorcerer to learn about.

Another thought struck me. “Both you and Siriks are set to fight on Laessa Greengood’s behalf tomorrow morning.”

Jocelyn shrugged. “Regardless of his motives in all this, I do not believe Lord Siriks is an evil man. He is angry, and desires justice the Accord cannot give him, but I have interacted with him enough to know he has honor. No, I believe he will fight for the Lady Laessa. Do not concern yourself with that battle, Ser Headsman. We have it well in hand.”

I let out a breath, not sure of my own feelings. Every time I remembered about the Greengood girl, I felt a stab of guilt that I’d been part of involving her in that mess with the Priory, and yet had to stand aside and let others risk themselves on her behalf.

The rest of me struggled to care about any of this. I couldn’t get Catrin’s face out of my mind, her eyes wide with horror as the demon reached out for her. I didn’t have time to hear all of this now.

And I needed to hear all of it.

Clenching my hand into a fist, I turned to Fen Harus. “So the Sidhe know about all this?” My voice hardened. “Why wasn’t I warned?”

The elf studied me a moment, no sign of apology on his half-animal face. “You have not been given a name, Ser Headsman. All involvement you have in this matter is of your own will.”

“That’s shit.”

Jocelyn stared at me in shock, no doubt horrified I would talk to a faerie elder that way, but I ignored him. “I’m fighting for all of us. The Vykes are our people’s mutual enemy. They burned your groves, mutilated your princess, led that war.”

“And we are fighting them,” the elf assured me.

I felt all too aware of Ser Jocelyn standing nearby. Nor could I fail to remember the cold words of the angel Umareon, about other champions being prepared to fight in the light.

Baring my teeth I asked, “Why haven’t I been ordered to kill Hasur already?”

I had no doubt this old faerie would know. He was advisor to Princess Maerlys, leader of the Seydii Elves, and she was peer to the Onsolain.

Without rising to my temper, the elf replied in an even tone. “Because you would have failed, Alken Hewer. You would never have breached into the heart of Talsyn, and the Choir would not waste you.”

His honesty stung me, and for a moment I was speechless. I had never considered they abstained from using me because they doubted my ability to succeed. There had always been a chance of failure.

It was a bitter mixture to swallow.

“Then give me a name now,” I pleaded. “The twins, or even Siriks Sontae, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me who I can end to finish all this.”

The sooner I was released from this duty, the sooner I could try to find her.

Fen Harus’s silver face seemed to fade in color, perhaps his version of a deflated sigh. “There is no single head you might claim with your axe to stop all this evil, Ser Headsman. These seeds were sewn long ago, and now they grow thorned fruit. We can only move to check our enemy where we will, and hope our actions do not cause the weeds to catch fire.”

I had little patience for his poetry just then. “Then what am I to do? Everyone insists I can’t just kill the evil bastards behind this, even though we know where they are, what they’re doing, how they intend to do it. Everyone says it will just make everything worse. So we just let them play this game?”

“Of course not,” Jocelyn said. “We beat them at their own game. If neither Siriks or Calerus claim the tournaments great prize, then they will not have the leverage they need.”

Fen Harus nodded. “The warlords of Cymrinor value strength of arms above almost everything else. If they see that the last survivor of House Sontae can challenge the High Prince, they will rally behind him. Similarly, if those sympathetic to the Vykes see a chance at not only renewing but winning the next war, they will shirk the Emperor’s authority.”

“This weapon will be that powerful?” I asked.

“It will be born from the clash of the land’s greatest warriors in this, the dawning of a new era.” Fen Harus dipped his cervid head. “In every age there is a magic born of this quality, and they are never quiet. Those who inherit the power in later years will possess only a faded image of it, but whoever claims it at its birth will wield an armament that can cower armies, at least for a time. Its power will fade as the wound its birth will leave heals.”

A wound. Something touched at the back of my thoughts, a sense of unease I could not name. I felt like I’d had a conversation like this before, about something else.

While the four of us had been talking, Hendry and Lisette had drawn near to listen, while the other three remained by the fire, too tired or too uninterested for talk of nations.

I didn’t see much reason to keep them out of the loop. Propping my axe on the ground much as Emma did with her weapon, I leaned forward to study my reflection in the water as I thought.

“Another player in this game has already placed a check on the Talsyner prince,” I said as I recalled our conversation with Laertes. Looking at Jocelyn I asked, “Can you beat Siriks, if it comes to that?”

The knight considered for a moment, but I saw his answer in the doubt on his face. “I have seen Siriks Sontae fight in earnest only once,” he told me. Then, shaking his head he added, “No, I am not at all certain I can beat him. It is very possible that man is the most dangerous warrior in all of Urn, or he could become it in time.”

“Does he have a mighty Art?” Emma asked. “He’s hardly older than me.”

Jocelyn nodded. “That is part of it. He…” The knight frowned, searching for words. “It is hard to explain. He becomes the center.”

“The center of what?” Hendry asked.

“Everything,” Jocelyn said.

My companions all gave the man nonplussed looks. Fen Harus kept his attention on me, and I knew his question before he asked it.

“I can’t,” I told him. “I don’t need to explain it to you, oradyn.”

Fen Harus shuffled closer to me on his hoofed feet, lowering his voice into an earnest pitch. “There is far more at stake here than a bit of scandal. We cannot employ you as the Headsman in this — that will give our enemy half of what they want.”

Lisette frowned in confusion. She had not been present during our discussion with Laertes.

“Our brooding leader insists he cannot participate in the tournament without spinning the Accord’s collective head,” Emma told the cleric in a droll voice. “So he’ll just keep running about fighting our enemy’s minions until he’s worn out.”

I wheeled on her. “Then what better idea do you have, girl? What genius idea would you submit to this wise council? Tell me what I should do.”

Emma stared at me with wide eyes, clearly taken aback. I had never barked at her so furiously after one of her needling quips. I felt no contrition just then, only impotent rage.

“Well?” I demanded through my teeth, glaring down at her. I didn’t remember moving, but I stood almost directly over her in that moment.

The others remained silent, no one seeming to know what to say. I didn’t care what any of them thought. Not unless they could give me a miracle to reverse the past several hours. Emma opened her mouth, closed it, then lowered her eyes. A blush colored her face, anger and shame intermingling.

“I do not know,” she said in a small voice. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn, ser.”

She didn’t seem to have any of the sternness with which she’d stopped me in the crypt earlier. I lacked the focus to question it just then.

Lisette, who’d held a ponderous expression throughout the confrontation, suddenly spoke up. “What about a disguise?”

I turned my head to look at her. “What?”

Lisette’s blue eyes stared at me, as though she were as surprised at the comment as the rest of us. “Um… a disguise? It’s a knight’s tourney, right? Everyone’s going to be wearing armor and helmets. I mean… no has to know it’s you, do they?”

I stared at her, for a moment at a loss for words. Ludicrous. The idea was idiotic, like something out of a bad play put on by traveling entertainers. And yet, others in the circle were adopting thoughtful expressions. Lisette, looking embarrassed at the attention, hastened to explain.

“When I was a little girl, the lord who governed our village hosted a small tourney. I remember there was a knight who competed. He never took off his helmet, and no one knew who he was. They called him the Sparrow Knight, because he had this little bird as a pet, and…”

She coughed, sensing the story had begun to lose its thread. “Well, anyway, no one could beat him until the end, when the lord’s son managed to knock him off his chimera and compel his surrender. Then the young lord made the mystery knight take his helmet off, and it turned out to be the boy’s uncle!”

The lay sister was smiling, I realized. “It was all great fun.”

Hendry drew Emma’s attention when he suddenly pumped his fist. “Like my cousin, Derrik. He did the same thing. Do you remember, Emma?”

Emma lifted her face, some of the anger our quarrel had put in it fading as she considered. “Yes, I do remember that. Mostly how angry your father got every time this capering stranger unseated one of his picks.”

“My people are also known to play this game,” Fen Harus informed us. “Often has there been one of the Old Children disguised as a mere errant warrior, to test the mettle of mortals and share in their exultations.”

“This isn’t a game,” I butted in. The wary looks on their faces after that moment of shared excitement suited my mood. “This is the Grand Tournament of Garihelm, the first of its like since the Accord was formalized.”

“It is not a game,” Fen Harus agreed. “But it is tradition. No doubt there will be a handful of anonymous fighters already. You may draw some curiosity, but not the sort of attention you fear should you participate as yourself.”

“And it is a way for you to take an active hand in this struggle,” Jocelyn added. “The Vykes have made themselves impossible to target directly by all avenues save for this, where their champion welcomes our steel. Let us accept Calerus’s bluff, and show him there is still strength in our Accord.”

I found myself shaking my head, denying their assurances that it could be that simple. I wanted to deny it. I had no stomach for this game, not that night. “I do not believe the Vykes will hedge all of their bets on Calerus. They’re clearly planning something more here. I… saw something earlier. They had a demon building some enormous construct in the old catacombs. Then there are the Mistwalkers, possibly other sleeper agents and monsters in the city.”

I turned to Fen Harus. “I think they are preparing a coup.”

The elf nodded. “I agree. I also know that they will not succeed if the realms remain united. The Vykes seek to prove that they can win the next war, and turn support to Talsyn. By displaying strength, or by forcing us to act rashly, they can accomplish that aim.”

Hendry’s eyes seemed to brighten. “But if we can show the realms that they are not stronger than us, even expose their machinations…”

“Then Talsyn would be very foolish to choose open war,” Fen Harus stated. “They would find themselves fighting alone within a sea of enemies, and be starved inside their mountains.”

He focused his attention on me, his slanted sapphire eyes uncanny in the way they failed to blink even once. “I know you are waiting for an authority, mortal or immortal, to give you leave to let loose. That will not happen, Alken Hewer, not unless there is no other recourse. We do not want this to escalate that far. Will you not at least attempt to choose the less bloody path?”

And how could I refuse, when he worded it like that? Damn all elves and gods. Some evils need their blood to be spilled, or else they would just profligate.

I turned my back on him before my derision could show in my face. “I… need to think on it. For now, my companions are injured and need rest. They can stay here?”

“Of course,” Fen Harus agreed easily.

Emma started to follow me. I turned and stopped her. She still had a hurt expression on her face, but also a stubborn one. I knew she didn’t want to leave me alone.

“I’m not going far,” I promised her. “Or to do anything rash. I just need to think.”

Emma pressed her lips into a thin line and nodded. “Very well. Should I make you swear an oath on it?”

The faintest smile touched the corner of my lip. “No need.”

I left them to their plots, and walked into the woods to grapple with my grief alone.

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