Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 4: Chapter 5: Sleuth

Arc 4: Chapter 5: Sleuth

As I descended a switchbacking series of stairs cut into the outer face of the keep, heading to meet Emma at one of the gates, a shadow slipped from behind a corner to stop me.

I halted, immediately going on guard at the glint of armor under the noonday sun. Facing me from a lower step, blocking my path forward, stood the Empress’s First Sword. She stood tall as me, perhaps even a bit taller, her broad shoulders dramatized by pauldrons shaped into the semblance of spiraling sea shells. She had her clamshell helm tucked under one arm, her scarred, bronzed face on display.

“Off to chase more shadows?” Ser Kaia Gore asked, raising a thick eyebrow. She had a slight accent I’d never been able to place. The perpetual wind spiraling around the Fulgurkeep made her ash-colored hair dance, revealing the shaved sides of her skull.

I glanced past her down the steps. I saw no one else — the nearest sentry stood well more than a good shout away. We were alone.

“I’m on another errand,” I confirmed, on guard. Of all the members of Rosanna’s household, I trusted this former adventurer the least. I’d never fought with her, and didn’t know how deep her loyalties to her liege were. We had interacted very little since I'd arrived at the castle.

A lazy smile formed across Kaia’s lips. She had predator eyes, ones that reminded me of some huge cat — disinterested, so long as she wasn’t hungry for blood. “The Empress has a lot of trust in you,” she noted conversationally.

“Sure,” I agreed. The steps were quite narrow. They were siege stairs, not built for safety, and it wouldn’t take much to get knocked off and fall far down to the wave-soaked rocks below. Good chance none of the sentries on the nearby towers would even notice over the sound of crashing water and wind.

“I know you,” the royal champion said, watching me.

I narrowed my eyes. “We’ve seen one another regularly for weeks, Ser Knight. Are you saying we’re friends, now?”

Ser Kaia snorted. “I’ve met you before this city.” She lifted a steel-clad hand, pointing a finger covered in small, intricately jointed bits of metal at me. “You were at Rhan Harrower’s execution. You held the axe that separated the old bear’s head from his shoulders.”

I felt my hackles go up. No way she’d seen my face — the glamour of that place had been on me, and I’d worn my faerie cloak at the time.

“I recognize that weapon,” she said, nodding to the long tail of my coat where it covered the axe, which I’d shaved down again to better carry. “I recognize your build, the way you move. I don’t forget these things.” She shrugged.

“What’s your point?” I demanded.

“I asked Her Grace about ye,” she said, her odd accent spiking on the last few words — a nervous habit, perhaps — “and got quite a story. I hear you used to serve her as one of her knights. That you were once her First Sword.”

I braced one foot on the stair beneath me, trying to make the motion casual. “That was a very long time ago,” I said.

Kaia shrugged again, making her elaborate armor clink. “Sure. And nowadays, you’re some scary Headsman, boogeyman to the aristos and all that. But you used to be a royal champion, like I am now.”

She studied me appraisingly. “I’ve got your old job, right at your old queen’s side. You good with that?”

I blinked. That was what this was about? I let the tension in my limbs relax.

“As I said, it was a long time ago.” I let some of the hostility in my voice slip away too. “I have no hard feelings toward you, Ser Kaia, and I’m glad Rose has someone guarding her.”

Kaia’s winged eyebrows climbed very high. “Rose, is it?”

I bit back a curse. I’d let the nickname slip out, forgetting that most wouldn’t take kindly to such an informal moniker for the Empress.

“That’s another thing,” Kaia said, once again aiming a finger at my chest. “I’ve been talking to some of the men-at-arms from Karledale. They’ve been telling me stories too.” She let a grin perfectly matched to her lazy eyes spread across her face. “They say you and Her Grace were close. Very close.”

I scowled. “And?”

“You fucking the Empress?” The knight asked me. The question came out like a whip crack, bouncing off the side of the enormous castle in a barking echo.

I glared at the knight, and spoke very clearly even through my teeth. “No. I’m not sleeping with Her Grace.”

Kaia sniffed, clearly not believing me. “She always sends me away when she’s talking to you. Sends her handmaids away, too. She doesn’t show anyone else that kind of trust, and this city is full of her enemies. You’ve known her since she was a child. And…” She waved a hand at me, almost as though casting a spell. “You’re not bad to look at, with that glaring face, those shiny eyes.”

“I don’t have time for this,” I snapped, and began to walk down the steps. She’d move, or I’d move her. Instead, she pressed a hand to my chest and stopped me cold. She was shockingly strong — even when I pushed against her arm, it didn’t budge.

“What Her Grace does in private is her business,” Kaia said flatly. “She’s a beauty, and has a lot on her shoulders. She has ye bounce her to let off some steam, that’s all well and good. But I want you and I to have an accord, understand? You do anything to bring harm on her, and I’ll pull out your ribs and hang you by them.”

I studied her a moment, still with her hand on my chest. Then, letting my own lazy smile touch my lips I said, “Is this jealousy?”

Kaia’s amused eyes became cold. “I was a mercenary before all this. Now I’m at the top of the world.” She waved her hand across the foggy expanse of Garihelm below us. “I’m not going to let some old flame fuck me over. You make me look bad, and I will rip you apart.”

She let those words hang, jabbing her finger into the center of my chest, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Just for the principle of the thing, see?”

I sighed. I really didn’t need any more enemies. Calming myself I said, “I am not Queen Rosanna’s lover.” I used her native title, halfway between familiarity and formality. “We were never… Like that. There were rumors in Karles, it’s true, but she’s like a sister to me.”

Kaia squinted at me, canting her head to one side so her loose mohawk fell down one half of her face. “You’re a liar. You have feelings for her, and they’re not brotherly. I see it in the way you look at her. I hear it in the way you talk to her, and hang on her words.”

I found I couldn’t meet the knight’s eyes then. Glancing out over the waters I said, “We’ve been through a lot together.”

Kaia waited, still not budging.

“Maybe there was a time,” I admitted. “When we were young. But neither of us ever acted on it.”

After a minute of silence, Kaia nodded. “Good. Keep it that way, and you and I won’t have a problem. Also, most of her guard assume you’re her lover. I won’t spread it from my lips, but you should know. Step light, eh?”

She clapped a hand on my shoulder, then stepped past me to ascend the steps. Her seafoam-colored cloak brushed past my legs, rippling in the wind, and soon enough the light song of her armor faded.

***

It rained again that day. A slow, lethargic drizzle, like the sky quietly wept.

“What’s got you sour?” Emma asked me as we navigated the crowded sprawl of Garihelm.

I sighed, feeling very tired. “The royal bodyguard thinks I’m cuckolding the Emperor.”

Emma considered that a moment. “Are you?” She asked.

When I glared at her, she held up her hands defensively. “Just asking. I did get a certain sense about you and the Empress.”

“You thought that about me and Catrin too,” I groused, annoyed.

“Yes!” Emma agreed brightly. “And Catrin very much wants you.” She shrugged, and adjusted the sword belted at her hip. “It was obvious enough.”

She wants my blood maybe, I thought darkly. “Why is everyone so interested in my love life all of the sudden?” I complained aloud, shifting out of the way of a porter ploughing through the crowds.

“It’s more that I’m worried about the lack of it,” Emma said with infuriating casualness. “Your dedication to duty is very admirable and all, but you’re still human, Alken. Mostly, anyway.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You need to loosen up every once in a while, keep yourself sane. Or did you go and do something foolish like swear a vow of celibacy? I hear some knights do.”

“Starting to wish I had,” I muttered under my breath. We passed by a clericon in a red robe proselytizing to a crowd. I caught the barbed trident of iron dangling from his neck, and adjusted the brim of my hat to better hide my face.

“Have you considered Ser Kaia was trying to help you?” Emma asked, her tone more curious than lecturing. “Markham Forger is not a good man to cross, and if even the rumor that you’re in a relationship with his wife gets out…”

“Nobles marry for politics,” I shot back. “They take lovers all the time. It’s normal. Kaia is only looking out for herself. Besides, it’s not true.”

Emma fell silent a minute at that, and we turned a corner down another avenue.

“Well, I certainly hope you aren’t expecting me to take your example and wallow in abstinence.” Emma’s eyes ran over a group of dancers from Mirrei, who were performing in front of a small crowd, and made an appreciative noise. “This is the greatest city this side of the Alderes, and I intend to enjoy myself when we’re not working, no offense.”

I’d begun to notice, since leaving the Fane, that Emma could be something of a hedonist. I shrugged. “As long as it doesn’t become a distraction. Or a problem.”

Emma snorted disdainfully. “Don’t worry, I won’t go and get with child or anything. I plan to take a knighthood one day, remember?”``

As had become both our habit of late, Emma had dressed like one of the local citizenry, skewing toward something a moderately wealthy citizen might wear rather than the more drab, inconspicuous garments I’d chosen. She wore a loose shirt in the warmth of the aging spring, pale red with white accents and billowing sleeves, tucked into black leggings of some new fashion cinched almost up to her ribs by far too many belts. She’d changed her style repeatedly since we’d arrived in Garihelm, caught up in the fury of changing fashion.

I’d warned Rosanna about giving the nobleborn girl too much access to her treasury, but she’d insisted it was necessary for us to be able to blend in any situation we might find ourselves in. Emma had, of course, gone about blending.

On the other hand, I’d chosen a long leather coat capable of hiding my weaponry much as the cloak I’d gotten used to for so many years of wandering, with sturdy, low-key clothing beneath — thick leggings tucked into hard boots, a white shirt under a brown tunic, and a tan scarf against the inconsistent bouts of coastal chill.

Comfortable, but I missed my armor. I’d worn armor constantly through so much of my life, and I felt naked without it. Vulnerable.

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We made an odd pair, mismatched as we were, but blended easily with the crowds brought by the summit and the spring festivals. With the fairs in full swing and the great summit of the Azure Round near at hand, the city had erupted with festivity and wonders. Magicians, both of the magical and mundane kind, troubadours, bards, poets, scholars locked in showy debates, and performers of every variety intermingled with merchants, farmers, and city-dwellers in a chaos of color and sound. The smell of sweat, food, and perfume seemed to fuse with the almost constant fog coiling through the seaside metropolis.

When I’d been younger, there would have been elves sharing in all that human joy. There would have been knights with their helmets off and their hands loose, relaxed and enjoying themselves. There would have been fewer grim-eyed mercenaries guarding the merchant wagons, fewer preosts spitting hateful invectives from makeshift stages. There wouldn’t be the omnipresent air of tension and uncertainty hanging over everything.

For all that, the renaissance which had come to the northern coasts of Urn from where it had begun in the west was in sharp evidence. I saw it in the intricate statues being erected in fountain plazas, heard it in the names of up-and-coming artists on the lips of the citizenry. I saw it in the strange inventions, both foreign and domestic, being displayed on the streets — alchemical powders which could erupt into sound and color, automatons of brass and wood, new medicines and chimera. I saw it in the strange, ever-more complex design of arms and armor worn by sellswords and wealthy retinues.

And there were knights. House knights, warrior lordlings, mercenaries, adventurers. They wore armor of diverse style and wealth, ranging from dingy iron to filigreed Bantesean whitesteel.

All of them were here for Forger’s great tournament. The new generation of martial might, eager to gain names for themselves.

The world had changed so much in recent years. It had been changing for much longer, across the Riven Sea and the Fences of Urn, and we’d only now just begun to let that change in.

From what I saw, it couldn’t all be bad. We might have let devils in with the polymaths, but we had monsters born and bred right here at home, didn’t we? I couldn’t bring myself to agree with leaders like the Grand Prior, who insisted all beyond our corner of the world was evil, and should be shut out. Every day I saw signs of a higher quality of life, of people given happiness outside of faith and duty thanks to the influx of art and invention.

Though I couldn’t shake the thought that, outside these walls, much of the land still burned, still starved. How many lords had shut their doors to the scholars and the poets? How many villages had angry, suspicious preosters warning them against the evils of change?

How many of them were right to be suspicious? How many of the richly dressed merchants whose barges sat fresh docked in the harbor were Fausts, with a crowfriar whispering in their ear? I caught sight of one merchant lord from the west, resplendent in woven layers, with chimeric ogres in his retinue.

I didn’t miss Emma’s sidelong glance as we walked, or the deliberate length of silence before she said, “Have you seen Catrin at all since we arrived in the city?”

She’d probably noticed my brooding, and wanted to drag me out of it. I decided to indulge her, because I knew stonewalling would just make her more persistent. And I was brooding.

I shook my head. “No. I doubt she’d want to hang about with an Inquisition in full swing, and she’s always been furtive.”

“She seemed quite fond of the city,” Emma noted. “We spoke a bit during that march through the tunnels. She talked about the festivals, the music, how lively the taverns are. She was right.”

Emma smiled at the sprawl of high towers and whitewashed buildings around us. “I could learn to love this place. I thought the countryside would drive me mad, back at the manor. I think I prefer noise to quietude. Going to be hard to find Kieran in all this though, if Laessa is wrong.”

I didn’t miss her carefully neutral expression. Then, half in vengeance for her earlier ribbing I said, “I don’t need to worry about you, do I? I’ve already got one love-blind youth to deal with.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so boorish. Emma and Kieran had spoken more than once, before things had gone bad.

I needn’t have worried. Emma just snorted. “I liked his paintings well enough, but no. My taste skews elsewhere, sorry as I am for the poor boy.”

Our wanderings eventually brought us to a district of the city not far from the Fountain Ward. Mostly residential, the homes were humble but well kept, with the occasional small garden or park tended to by the community. There were few guards here, and most of the locals were honest workers, craftsmen and laborers and the like.

Graveyards are not often kept in cities. Especially in Garihelm, with the ancient ruins below its canals and crowded straits. The pull of the Underworld inevitably dragged departed spirits into cellars and sewage systems, where they became trapped. Even when interred in catacombs or mausoleums, protected from the gravity of death, it was very rare for the Shepherds of Draubard to stray into such heavily populated areas.

But traveling out into the countryside to bury the dead isn’t always practical, especially for poorer folk, so people found ways to make do. The cemetery Emma and I visited had been constructed within the bounds of a small wooded island, one of the dozens upon which the city had been raised. I had no idea how the groves and gardens had been preserved through so many generations of habitation by such a large city, but the locals had kept it. Perhaps it was a place of consequence in the city’s history, or Sidhe blessed.

We crossed the old stone bridge separating the small island from the rest of the city. It had been a troll bridge, once — I recognized the abstract stonework, felt the lingering presence of the creature which had once protected it, but they’d long departed. We crossed without being challenged, passing into the shadow of coastal trees. The first grave markers, placed between emerging roots or in small clearings here and there, soon became visible.

Emma grew very quiet once we’d passed into the cemetery, the atmosphere of the place settling on her. Though she lacked my more supernatural connection to such sacred places, she hadn’t missed the subtle weight in the air.

“Well?” Emma murmured, hiding a sudden nervousness behind her aristocratic nonchalance. “What now?”

Her voice, even hushed, seemed overloud in the sudden quietude of the wooded island, so stark after the bustling streets. I could hear waves gently lapping against rock nearby. A cliff, perhaps. We were at a far edge of the city, where the bay properly began.

I closed my eyes, and focused on my auratic senses. I’d gotten a sense for Kieran’s presence the night before, that impression of cold where the heat of a mortal soul should have been — the scent of the undead.

It can often be abstract, the sensations given to me by my altered aura. I can hear hate, and smell evil. I can feel the brush of attention from an immortal like a feather across my skin, and know their sadness like the stilling of the wind. It’s more like poetry than a tool, and colored by the wills of the knights who came before me, who had their echoes imprinted into the Alder Table.

I tried to sense the cold of Kieran’s presence. I felt a stillness to the groves, the essence of peaceful death and the echoes of loss.

But not Kieran. I felt my shoulders tense as I began to doubt. Had Laessa been wrong, or intentionally misled me?

Was this another cold trail?

“He’s not here,” I said at last, feeling certain of it after about twenty minutes of walking about and getting a feel for the place.

“Damn,” Emma cursed bitterly.

“We’ll talk to Laessa again,” I said, folding my arms. “Get her to tell us where else he might be.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” Emma asked, propping a fist on her hip.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, rubbing at my eyes. “Hire a Fetch, if all else fails. I’m tired of running in circles.”

Emma considered a moment, then nodded. “Let me try something.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, but she was already busy. She walked a circle in the loose grass, studying the ground. She pressed the tip of one thumb to her lips, and I thought at first it was a thoughtful motion — but then she bit, drawing blood.

“What are you doing?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

“You’ll see,” she muttered, holding her thumb out and letting droplets of blood fall to the ground.

“This is a cemetery,” I warned her. “You’ll draw ghosts.” I recalled the last time I’d tried communing with the dead — a vengeful spirit had used the opportunity to try to kill me. I hadn’t seen Lorena Starling since, but I hadn’t forgotten her oath to take vengeance on me for the death of her husband.

“I think they’ll find my blood a bit spicier than they’d like,” the young lady said with a wicked grin. “No, there are other beings who prefer this scent. You should stand back a few more feet, by the by.”

I did, still bemused by this unexpected development. Emma let a good amount of her blood drip onto the grass, then drew her ornate sword. The blade glinted in a beam of sunlight breaking through the canopy, the bright steel burning above the sigil of House Carreon — a horned cairnhawk.

Emma sliced the blade across the ground, forming a perfect circle with practiced precision. I felt a sudden pressure in the air — she’d used Aura in that ritual motion. Then, lightly stepping out of the circle bounding her blood, the young noblewoman began to mutter under her breath.

I caught the word she repeated in a chanting mantra, and immediately understood.

“Qoth,” Emma Orley, once Carreon, whispered into the wind. “Child of Briar, Son of Bane, hear mine words and serve me again. Qoth of the Briar, heed mine call, thy mistress beckons thee from thy hall. By oaths sworn, by word, by blood, by flesh, by deed, by vassalage traded, by secrets known.”

Emma’s slitted eyes suddenly opened wide. Usually amber, they suddenly glinted with an almost crystalline red light. “My godmother granted me your service, Briar Elf. Come! I am Nath’s disciple, and you will obey.”

A shadow began to form inside the circle. The sea breeze died, and a coldness which had nothing to do with the peace of the dead fell over the grove.

And a chief servant of Bloody Nath, the Angel of the Briar, answered Emma’s summons.

Within the summoning circle, an ungainly shape formed. Shadow and wind congealed into solid phantasm, forming the body of the elf until it became real enough to see properly.

He had a head too large for his long, thin neck, long arms with many-jointed fingers, and glassy red eyes. His teeth were sharp and tinted green in a wide mouth, peeking from within the folds of a very slightly elongated skull not unlike a short muzzle. His gray hair hung lank around a rash-blotched pate, and he wore a long, thin robe woven of green-and-red thread, too big for him, its threadbare hem trailing across the ground. Wolf fur crawled across his pallid flesh in uneven patches, particularly on his forearms and knuckles.

The Briar faerie blinked at us, his eyes moving first to me, and then to Emma. He grinned, revealing his fully array of crooked teeth, and dipped into a courtly bow.

“My lady Carreon!” Qoth said, delight and malice in the rasping music of his voice. “And Ser Headsman. It has been some time.”

Emma sniffed, sheathing her sword in a single smooth motion. “It’s Orley now, Qoth. Do try to remember it.”

Again, the elf blinked. The motion had a starkly reptilian quality. “How delightful,” he murmured. “And how can I be of service to you this day, mistress?”

Emma had a satisfied expression on her face, and an excited glint in her eye. I could tell she was pleased her ritual had worked — I guessed it to be the first time she’d tried since leaving Venturmoor. But she caught the look on my face then, and her smugness wilted into chagrin.

Coughing, she addressed the wicked elf. “We are searching for a dyghoul. You know what that is?”

Qoth’s demeanor took on an edge of deliberate patience. “Indeed I do, mistress. A mortal shade trapped within a corpse. A revenant.”

“…Yes.” Emma shuffled on her feet. “Well, this one in particular must be found, and quickly. Can you do it?”

“Hm.” Qoth squatted down on his haunches, very much like a skinny toad, causing his robe to pool around him. “Perhaps. I must have the shade’s scent.”

Emma and I traded dubious glances. Neither of us had anything like that.

Thinking it over I said, “Kieran spent time here, in this cemetery.” For inspiration, Laessa had said. “He was a painter, and did work here. Can you use that?”

Qoth considered, running his ruby-eyed gaze across the grave markers. “Perhaps. I shall have a look around. If it is as you say, then this place will remember him. Remain here a while.”

He scurried off then, moving on all fours like a spider, long robe sliding behind him. Creepy bastard, I thought.

Emma shifted again, and kept very pointedly quiet.

“You didn’t tell me you could still call the familiar Nath gave you,” I said, without looking at her. Even still, I caught her wince out of the corner of my eye.

“I wasn’t certain I could.” Emma hedged, her voice taking on an uncharacteristically wheedling quality.

“What else can you still do?” I asked her, speaking low so the scurrying creature in the trees couldn’t hear me. Then, narrowing my eyes I said, “do you still see Nath?”

“No!” Emma spoke hastily. “I haven’t seen her since Venturmoor, I promise.”

Seen her, maybe, but heard her voice in your thoughts? In your dreams? Nath was Onsolain, and the Lady of the Briarfae. Creatures like Qoth were infamous for their ability to wield poison, even in words and thoughts.

I’d neglected this for too long. Maybe Vicar’s words beneath Rose Malin, that Nath hadn’t forgotten or given up on Emma, had also poisoned me. Even still, I’d taken the warning to heart. It was my job to guide my ward away from the darkness, from the tainted legacy of House Carreon and the supernatural forces seeking to use her.

“Do you know who the Brothers of the Briar are?” I asked quietly, speaking in a calm voice.

Emma remained quiet a minute before answering. “I’ve heard the name. I don’t know much, other than that they served Lady Nath.”

“They serve the Briar,” I corrected. “Nath is just a patron to the Briarfae, and she wasn’t always that. The Brothers of the Briar were heroes once, Em. Wizards and rangers, clerics, and especially knights. They took treacherous gifts from Qoth’s brethren, and it turned them into monsters.”

I let those words hang a while before continuing. Emma did not interrupt with any acerbic commentary or pointed cynicism, which I took as a good sign. “Briarland was once a mortal kingdom, did you know that? It was guarded by an order very much like the Knights of the Alder Table. Now it’s choked with qliphoth and ruled by creatures like Qoth. I’ve seen it before. It’s an evil place.”

I turned to face her then, and put a hand on her shoulder. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Qoth isn’t a pet, or a convenient resource. Nath and her allies cannot be trusted. Talk to me next time before you play the warlock, alright?”

Emma’s lips pressed tightly together, and she wouldn’t look at me. I thought perhaps she might shrug me off. But she only nodded.

I couldn’t tell how genuine her agreement was, and before I could say anything else Qoth scurried back. The elf propped one long arm behind his back and the other in front of him, a courtier’s pose. His impish grin widened into something ghastly.

“I have a scent. The poor child was here, and recently.”

I turned toward the faerie. “How long ago?”

“Some time before dawn,” Qoth said. “Then he left quite suddenly. The trees saw it — there are dryads in some of them, placed here long ago to guard the dead.”

I folded may arms. The elf was holding something back. “Explain,” I growled, impatient.

But Qoth only grinned, and kept silent.

“I order you to answer him,” Emma said, her voice hardening.

Qoth stiffened, then bowed his head. “He was taken from this place by another.”

“Another?” Emma asked, tilting her head to one side. “Who? Did the spirits see them?”

“A man,” Qoth murmured, the white spheres in the middle of his ruby eyes drifting lazily toward the girl. “A man dressed all in black, with one eye and a staff.”

Then, very deliberately, he looked at me and grinned wider. “A staff with a nail embedded into its head.”

Despite the pleasant spring day, I felt very cold then.

“Lias.”