Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 2: Chapter 11: Shrike

Arc 2: Chapter 11: Shrike

In truth, there wasn’t much for Emma to show me in her “court.” The manor, though old and worn down, was clean and comfortably furnished. It had little in the way of riches. It reminded me of a wealthy home stripped of its possessions to pay off debts.

Given Brenner’s possessive attitude toward the Carreon scion and her heirlooms, I wondered how much of her family’s treasures he’d claimed in return for his protection.

The manor had few other residents. I noticed a dour-looking groundskeeper tending to the trees at the edge of the property, catching sight of him through a second floor window. I noticed no other servants. I met one resident when I nearly stepped on the second of its two long, fluffy red tails, and it rewarded me with a high-pitched yelp before darting off into the depths of the house.

“A hearthhound?” I asked.

Emma’s lips had quirked in amusement at my moment of fright. “That was Valiant. Because he’s our valiant protector, you see?”

“…Right. It’s just, they’re usually bigger.” I paused a beat and added, “and braver.”

Emma shrugged.

Besides that, the manor seemed empty. No guards, no handmaids, no relatives. There were crop fields beyond the manor grounds tended by country folk from nearby villages, and the carriage driver Qoth who kept up the stables. The groundskeeper lived in a small cottage close to one of the hamlets, perhaps half an hours walk away. Vanya and Qoth seemed to be the only other permanent residents of the country manor.

A lonely life. Alone in this coastland, at the mercy of an overbearing lord, without family or wealth, with a dynastic curse shadowing her through her life. I started to understand how Nath had gotten her in with the young Carreon.

“House Hunting doesn’t offer you any men-at-arms?” I asked her, while we stood in the gardens following the brief tour. The sky had grown overcast, and I could smell rain on the cool wind.

Emma pursed her lips, not replying immediately. I couldn’t read her expression. She'd become remote, as she had during the lulls in our conversation during the journey. Her eyes narrowed as they scanned the fields. She paced out onto the grass, rolled her shoulders, then slid her ornate sword from its sheath, letting the ornate scabbard fall to the ground. Then she turned to face me, brandishing the blade.

“Let us see that fine battle axe of yours, then.” She lifted her chin.

I didn’t understand, at first. “Sorry?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Draw your weapon! Have at me.”

“You… want me to fight you?”

In response, the Carreon girl flourished her blade, causing the fine steel to cut the air with an audible whistle. She had good control, I noted, the sort of poise only gained through training and confidence. “You ask me why I keep no guards. I will show you. Besides, I want to see what you can do. That light show in the woods didn’t give me a good idea.”

I hesitated. I had no idea how competent a swordswoman Emma was, exactly, and we used real weaponry. Dangerous, for a test. More than that, I noted something in the aristocrat’s eyes I didn’t like, her cold calm vanishing the moment she drew steel. Frustration, anger, bitterness, all of it mixed with a hungry sense of anticipation. Her eyes were truly like a hawk’s now, wide and unblinking.

I didn’t particularly want to waste the day helping the draconian teenager prove something. I had an undead nightmare to hunt and a fell godling to appease. Still, I’d been ordered to play nice. Also, I didn’t mind the idea of seeing what she could do. There had to be a good reason Nath had taken her under wing. Something told me her air of confidence wasn’t all feigned.

Emma noted the reluctance fade from my face and flashed her teeth in a smile. “Don’t hold back now, Ser Red. I want to know why Lady Nath picked you.”

And I want to know why she picked you, I thought. Without speaking, I unclasped my russet cloak and let it fall to the ground, revealing the long coat of frayed chainmail I wore beneath. Dark Elf forged from strange substances, the shadowed links shimmered oddly in the wan daylight of an overcast day.

I’d added a few of my own modifications over the months since Oradyn Irn Bale had given me the armor, the gift meant as an apology, and as a pretext to feed me secrets about a dangerous foe. I’d added vambraces and spaulders of paler mortal steel, and wound my chest and waist with leather straps for various other accessories, including my dagger, axe-hook, and various pouches and packs. I wore dark brown trousers beneath the ragged strips of metal rings hanging below my belt, tucked into tough leather boots. I’d had my tall boots armored as well, protecting my shins and the tops of my feet.

Normally, I’d have added an overcoat of some variety to help protect the metalwork, but the faerie armor didn’t seem bothered by rain and wear the same as human craft.

Emma swallowed at the sight, losing some of her bravado. I wasn’t so mature as to not take some satisfaction in that. I stood most of six and a half feet tall to her five and eight inches, and I had a frame near burly as the Hunting lad’s.

“Rules?” I asked.

Emma shook her nervousness away and once more donned her own armor of aristocratic disdain. “We stop when one yields.”

I nodded, then unhooked my axe from the ring on my back and let its oaken handle slide through my fingers, so the crescent-moon blade hung low to the grass.

We began to circle one another, some martial instinct compelling us both to begin pacing in the same instant. Emma didn’t rush me. She held her blade in a low guard, the slender steel tip brushing along the grass. Her eyes never left mine.

I noted we’d attracted an audience. The coachman observed from the cover of a big apple tree some distance off, still wearing their black garments and tricorn despite the day’s relative warmth. The servant, Vanya, watched from the manor’s back door.

Emma and I closed the distance between us as we circled, like two stones caught in a whirlpool, both spinning toward an inevitable conclusion. Then, without warning, she darted toward me, feinting high with her blade only to commit to a swiping cut from the left.

It nearly scored. Surprised by her speed and unrestrained ferocity, I barely parried the blow with my axe, lifting it so the bit faced skyward near my right shoulder. The razor edge of Emma's sword glided across the denser bronze edge of my own weapon. Rich mortal steel hissed against elven bronze, then we parted in two simultaneous and differently complex movements.

I stared at the young aristo, not bothering to hide my impressed expression. “Who taught you how to swing a blade?” I asked.

Emma flourished the sword again, aiming its point skyward in a salute. “I trained with Brenner’s son through my whole childhood. His lordship is a wealthy man — we had very good tutors.”

I nodded, accepting this. Emma’s eyes narrowed, and she shifted one foot mere millimeters to one side. My only warning. She lashed out again, but this time I was ready. I parried the blow, putting more force into my own movement and wielding my axe one handed. The shock of that impact sent the young noble stumbling back.

I could have followed through in a counterattack then. I didn’t. Emma, though only experienced in the practice ground, was wise enough in swordplay to know I’d held back on the riposte. Her jaw clenched and she straightened, brandishing her strange sword again.

Again, she struck. I concentrated on defense, parrying her blows with my axe’s blade. The Faen Orgis wasn’t a proper tall-axe — its gnarled oak haft measured a few inches longer than my arm, its hook-shaped blade forming a curve down nearly a third of that length. I brandished it with one hand, using the V-shaped vambrace of my left almost as a buckler, letting some strikes slide off it. I moved very little, only so much as I needed to, conserving energy.

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It took me some time to get used to Emma’s strange swordplay. Her weapon wasn’t dissimilar from a saber — she danced through wide, sweeping cuts, occasionally using both hands to rotate and leverage the blade. More than once I avoided the chipped end of the sword by little more than a hair’s width.

But avoid it I did, and Emma grew more and more frustrated as we sparred. Sweat beaded across her brow, and she started to let out angry huffs with each failure to score a hit.

Finally, she slashed her blade to one side and stepped out of my reach. I stepped back as well, resting my axe on one shoulder. Emma breathed hard, sweating and red-faced.

“Why won’t you attack!?” She snapped, eyes wide with fury. Her cheeks were flushed, from exertion and from a swordsman's wounded pride. “Quit mocking me.”

I frowned. “I’m not mocking you. This isn’t a real fight — you wanted to know how capable I am.”

Emma tsk’d. “Swordplay can only go so far against monsters and ghosts.” Her eyes flashed. “I want to see it again. Your Art.”

Inwardly, I grimaced. I’d half expected this friendly bout led somewhere I wouldn’t like. “It’s not a parlor trick,” I said, letting my voice become hard.

Emma lowered her chin, and something about her… changed. A shadow passed over her, distorting her features, making her seem both more real than her surroundings, and less. She became sharp. That is the only way I can describe it. Her angular features took on an almost metallic quality, a dark red tinge crawling across her like a film. The effect spread out from her, adding that same sense of sharp vibrancy to the grass near her pointed boots.

Her aura, I realized. I was witnessing the projection of her spirit into the world.

She flexed her left hand, drawing my eyes to it. Her fingers dripped blood from a wound on her palm, but I couldn’t remember cutting her. Red droplets fell to the grass, one after the other.

“If you won’t show me yours,” she said, hawk eyes wide and fell, “then I will show you mine.”

I had no warning other than the surreal sensation I’d started to feel, and an instinctive shout that I was in danger. I heard a grating, metallic shriek, and in the same instant I leapt back, purely on reflex.

Something burst from the ground. It shot up fast as a scorpion’s tail, nearly skewering through my skull. It did grind against the front of my armor, and though the elf-iron held, I felt certain I wouldn’t have wanted to get hit directly.

Once I’d scrambled back, I blinked at what I saw between me and the girl. An iron pike, such a dark red as to be nearly black, had sprouted from the ground. Ten feet tall and capped by cruel barbs, it jutted toward the sky at an angle like an evil tree, shimmering with a faint vermillion light.

I stared at the sight, momentarily dumbstruck. I knew what it was I looked at, it just shocked me to find it wielded by one so young and disenfranchised. A Blood Art — a technique cultivated by the scions of the High Houses, passed from lord to heir through long centuries, refined and empowered through ritual and ancient rite. They are a potent magic kept by the rulers of Urn, wielded in wars throughout the land’s long history, and no small part of the higher nobility’s power, and their pride.

Emery Planter had been a lesser noble, with no lordly magic to his name. But Emma Carreon had been born of a High House, her family good as kings and queens in their province. That dynastic magic suffused her aura even as the Alder’s magic had been worked into mine. However, where my powers had been smithed into my aura, fundamentally altering it without being of it, Emma had been born with her power. It flowed in her like her own blood, one with her blood.

Still, to awaken it so soon and complete… I’d rarely seen a magic so refined, or tangible. The pike seemed like a real, physical thing, not just auratic phantasm. For a moment, I felt awed.

Emma met my gaze and showed her teeth. Her eyes flicked to the grass at my feet, and I understood.

She’d cut herself on the sly earlier in our duel, and everywhere her blood had fallen amid the grass, she could conjure another pike. And she did, flicking her wrist like a conductor, causing two more iron spears to stab up from the ground. I dodged one, nearly lost an eye to the next as I let it grind against a vambrace. I danced back as more appeared, each one emitting that teeth-aching sound of tortured metal and wind.

I began to sweat. Emma never moved, remaining where she was as I dodged her Art, her eyes flitting in concentration.

“Do you like it?” Emma asked, breathless from swordplay and concentration. “It’s called Shrike Forest.”

A forest, huh? I could see it. Every droplet of her blood became a tiny seed from which a fell sapling could sprout, and the longer this went on the more obstacles fouled my movements. Already half a dozen spears aimed skyward from the field, and counting. A seventh screamed upward, grazing the side of my neck as I flinched aside. Pain flashed.

Finally, half in panic and half in anger, I lifted one hand. “Enough!” I roared. I summoned my own aura and shaped it — not into Godsven’s Dawn, but into a cleansing Art like the one I’d used against Irn Bale. My own aura made its presence known to the naked eye as a faint golden light around me, like a sunbeam illuminating the world where I stood, making all else seem dimmer by comparison.

A ring of pale golden light flashed out from me like a ripple in a pond, shattering the bloody pikes as though they were made of brittle red glass. Emma cried out as the backlash of her broken magic struck her, stumbling back in the grass and falling. Gashes appeared in her arms, ripping the layered shoulders of her garments, as though invisible claws raked her.

I winced.

“My Lady!” A voice cried out. Vanya, who’d been watching from the manor’s back door, rushed to the fallen noble and collapsed to her knees between me and her mistress, as though to shield the girl. I stood there a moment, catching my breath and trying to catch up to what had just happened. Then, cursing, I went to them to help.

“Stay away!” Vanya spat. Her sad, tired face had twisted with rage and panic, transforming her entirely. “Don’t come near her.”

I set my axe in the grass and held up both of my hands in a gesture of peace. “I just want to see how badly she’s hurt,” I said. “Please.”

Vanya’s nostrils flared. Her eyes held nothing but distrust and fear at first, but as her momentary panic calmed she seemed to reassert control over herself. “What did you do to her?” She demanded.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, I swear it. I might be able to help her.”

The maid stared at me a long moment. Fear and shock don’t make for good pillars to rational thought, but she’d watched our bout. She’d seen how things had gotten out of hand. I saw the understanding break through her moment of panic. She nodded, moving aside.

I knelt next to Emma. Her arms were a ruin, deep gouges carved from mid-forearm to shoulder, shredding the fine material of her clothes and the skin beneath. She looked pale, and trembled. Smaller cuts had scored her face, particularly around her eyes. It seemed a miracle she hadn’t been blinded. She didn’t seem aware of me or Vanya, her eyes locked on her injured arms.

The wounds looked bad. My heart pounded in my chest. If I were responsible for killing the girl, even inadvertently in self defense, I’d…

I’d come close to killing innocents in the past, but never had. For all her dark dealings and regal airs, Emma was innocent. I would not cross that line.

I would not.

“What happened?” Vanya asked, her voice hushed.

“I disrupted her magic,” I said, not sure if Vanya knew anything about the Auratic Arts. “She wasn’t prepared for the backlash — it was probably the first time anyone’s dispelled her Art like that. The power she channeled had nowhere to go but back into her.”

"Her own magic did this?" Vanya asked, her face going pale with horror.

Idiot, I cursed myself. I'd lost my cool in the moment, become brutally reactive rather than analytical. "It's common with untrained adepts," I explained. "But it's worse with her power. The Blood Arts -- they're stronger than a typical Art, more real, but the power can be jealous. Rather than dissipating into harmless Od, it erupted. Like... like shrapnel from a cannonball, but all in one direction, back at its source."

I babbled. The wounds were ugly, and everything had happened so fast...

Vanya’s eyes narrowed in thought. “My…” she took a deep breath, shuddering slightly. “My great-aunt was a witch who practiced healing. When I was a girl, she ripped the plague out of another child, but it went into her instead… it was like she sickened to death instantly, like the disease had turned into a living, hungry thing.”

“It’s like that,” I agreed. “Her magic isn’t a kind one.” I thought again of the cruel barbs on the pikes she’d conjured.

“What can you do for her?” Vanya asked, her tone becoming curt.

“I…” I swallowed. “I might be able to heal the injuries with my own magic.” I held out my hand, concentrating. I tried to clear my thoughts, let myself become like clear spring water. Once, I’d had the power to heal with a touch — the Alder Table had been famed for that power, nearly so much as our battle Arts.

I hadn’t been able to heal since the Table had been broken. Since I’d learned that—

Don’t think about it, I ordered myself. You are clear water. You are a protector, a shield against evil, a wellspring of hope. You are the Dawn and the Warding Moon.

You are a killer. A failure and a dupe.

I grit my teeth with the effort of clearing my mind, fighting against the intrusive thoughts. I took the same magic I used to smite dead things and demons, and channeled it into something gentler. I recalled the bounty of Seydis, once shared with all of Urn. I thought of trees shining with gilded leaves, of vibrant prairies, of silver waterfalls. I thought of what I'd once been, and tried to make myself that again.

When I lifted them to Emma’s arm, my fingertips shone with pale golden light. Vanya gasped at the sight.

I placed that golden hand on the girl’s arm, and—

And…

Nothing. The power faded. The wounds continued to bleed.

I closed my eyes, shame and exhaustion making my shoulders slump. “Are there any clerics in one of the villages nearby?” I asked Vanya.

Vanya didn’t seem to understand what I’d just tried, or why it hadn’t worked. “There’s a man who lives not far,” she said. “A doctor. A physician.”

“Get him,” I said, frustration tightening my voice. “I’ll bring her inside.”