Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 2: Chapter 20: Council

The oaken table shuddered as Brenner slammed his fist down. “I will not abide that thing on my land. What do you intend to do, Ser Kross?”

The knight-exorcist remained unfazed by Brenner’s anger. With his armor and cloak cleaned, he looked as gray and stoic as a castle gargoyle where he stood center-stage across the great table. All the knights and high-ranking servants who sat in the hall, a council chamber high in the largest tower of Antlerhall, turned their eyes to the warrior-priest.

Emma sat at the table, though all those aged soldiers had contrived to make as much space around her as possible, so she seemed an island at one lonely corner. I leaned against a pillar fashioned into the shape of coiling serpents at her back, watchful.

Ser Kross met the lord’s angry eyes. He paused a moment before speaking, as though waiting for the last echo of a rumble of thunder to pass. “I assure you, lord, I have no intention of keeping idle. You must understand, however, that this is not a threat you can overcome through force of arms — we have already made that mistake once.”

The gathered knights shifted in discomfort. Many of them still bore burn wounds, and many chairs in the council hall sat empty.

“Then how, exactly, do you intend to rid us of this menace?” Brenner’s glower could have intimidated an ursinwyrm. Indeed, no one else in the hall had dared to speak through his blustering. “I called you here to banish Jon Orley with your Sacred Arts, only to lose a great portion of my bannermen yesterday.”

I wonder if anyone’s got the guts to mention he’s the one who tried to joust with the Hellrider, I thought wryly. To be fair, I kept my mouth shut as well.

He jabbed a calloused finger into the scarred wood of the ancient table. “You tell me that Orley is merely bound, not dead, and that at some indefinite point — likely soon — he will break free.”

Kross nodded calmly. “That is my understanding as well, my lord.”

“And are we to understand that, all this time, the spirit plaguing us has been a Creature of Hell? That the Carreons brought a demon into our midst?”

This interruption came from one of the knights, a long-necked, wheat-haired scarecrow of a man named Ser Gors. His eyes reminded me of an exotic lizard’s — wide and bugging. At times I believed he might even produce a long tongue and try to lick them.

Many eyes went to Emma. She ignored them, staring in bored indifference at some imperfection in the old table. However, I noted her jaw tightening at the allegation.

“Jon Orley is no demon, Ser Gors. He is a servant of the Zosite.”

That word hung heavy as might the scent of sulfur in the air. Ser Kross remained passive to the shocked gazes directed his way, his eyes remaining locked on Brenner’s.

Even I shifted, surprised. I hadn’t expected an agent of the Priory to know, or admit, to such a thing.

The Lord of House Hunting slumped into his seat, scowling through his bristled beard. “A servant of demons may as well be a fiend himself. It makes no difference.”

“It makes every difference.” Kross spoke with unwavering sternness. “And the Lords of Orkael — the Iron Hell, as it is often called — are not demonic. They are kinfolk to the Onsolain. Estranged, yes, but their realm is vassal to Onsolem, one of the original Afterrealms.”

A heavy silence fell, and I could tell his words had upset many of the knights. One or two made warding signs against evil. Even Brenner looked disturbed.

The lord’s cleric — an aged wisp of a woman in a white habit trimmed with gold thread, the brass circlet of her office set over her brow — frowned at the exorcist. “That is not aligned with the Church’s doctrine, Ser Kross. Need I remind you that the Iron Realm’s influence was purged from Urn by the God-Queen’s own edicts, that it can claim no souls in this land? There has not been a crowfriar allowed across the Riven Sea or the Fences in more than five centuries.”

Kross held up a placating hand. “I am aware of the Riven Order, clericon, I only mean to clarify that what we face is not demonic in nature. It might seem pedantic, but the distinction does matter, especially if we intend to face it with clear heads and open eyes.”

He searched the gathered faces, eventually alighting his flint-gray eyes on mine. Without any particular emotion he said, “I am not the only one here who is versed in such lore. If you do not believe me, perhaps it is best to consult the one who bound our enemy in the first place?”

A dozen sets of begrudging eyes followed the knight-exorcist’s gaze to me. I glared at Kross a moment, daring him to say more, to out me. He knew who I was now, what I had once been.

He said nothing, only held my gaze with the same calm stoicism he seemed to treat everything, the ghost of a sad smile at one corner of his lips.

Why had I told him all of that in the chapel? What had come over me? Idiot, idiot, idiot, I silently berated myself. But, once I’d started talking, I hadn’t been able to stop. It had been like a floodgate had opened, like the words had been pulled from me with a barbed hook.

Still, I regretted it. It wasn’t like I had any fear of him going to his masters in the Priory — the Church had already excommunicated me. But he could still cause me some trouble. Many domains wanted my head for plying my bloody work without royal sanctions. It wasn’t like I went around telling people their beloved Divinity gave me my orders.

Dark rumor the Headsman of Seydis might have been to most, but it didn’t mean Kross wouldn’t be smart enough to figure things out.

“Ser Alken?”

Brenner’s rumbling voice drew me from my thoughts. I glanced to him, then at the various eyes fixed on me, waiting for me to elaborate on Kross’s words about demons and devils. Emma had emerged from her shroud of apathy, staring at me just as intently as the rest. She, at least, didn’t look skeptical about what I might say.

I dismissed my concerns about the exorcist for the moment and focused on the present conversation. I spoke into the silence. “The Zosite are the jailers of the Abgrûdai.”

Kross’s use of the true name of Hell’s dark lords had caused discomfiture, but my mention of the proper name for the beings who’d sacked Heaven had a much harsher reaction. I wasn’t surprised. Abgrûdai. The Dread and Awful Presences. The Ravening Ones. The Usurper’s Coconspirators. Denizens of the First Gaol.

They have many names, but only one really matters — The Demons of the Abyss. Once, I might have gotten a harsh look and a prayer from a priest for speaking that name, but no one in Urn could dismiss its shadow with memories of the Fall still so fresh. My own thoughts went to Caelfall, to the thing I’d briefly encountered there. Flashes of a gore-ruined chapel filled my mind.

Many faces went ghost-pale, even Emma’s, and the old clericon made the sign of the auremark over her chest. A few prayers were whispered into the stale castle air. Brenner only closed his eyes and drew in a sharp breath. “I will not have these names tossed about in my hall. They are profane.”

I shrugged. He’d asked.

Brenner took a moment to calm himself, then turned to his clericon. “Is what they say true?”

“I would need to consult my records,” the scholar-priest said, her aged face troubled. “We are discussing very old lore. Whatever the case, the agents of Orkael were banished from this land, its masters disavowed by our God. I see no reason not to treat the Burnt Rider as any other fiend, and see him banished. Our world’s cosmology is complicated and storied, true, but there is only one Queen to whom we pledge our devotion. All else is noise.” She brushed her pale fingers through the air, as though sweeping away a moth.

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A wan smile touched Kross’s peaceful visage, directed at the priest. I couldn’t be certain, but I felt like it held a touch of mockery.

Curious. I hadn’t been aware that the Priory diverged from other sects of the Faith in the matter of old cults from the continent.

“As fascinating as all the cosmology is,” Ser Gors drawled, looking bored, “I fail to see how it helps us solve our little problem. You bound the beast, Glorysworn, so you must have some sort of plan?” He rolled his reptilian eyes to me. “For that matter, who is this vagabond the Lady Emma has brought into our midst, who knows so much of arcana?”

A roomful of eyes, some distrustful and some curious, turned to me. Without looking at the knight, Emma spoke aloud to the room. “Master Alken is an expert on Sidhe lore and other matters, as I explained to his lordship.” She nodded to Brenner. “I brought him into my employ for his knowledge, not just his sword arm.”

Brenner waved a hand dismissively. “Lady Emma has the right of it. He’s a ranger, or some such. I think his actions at Orcswell speak well enough to his presence here.”

That mollified most of them. Gors still eyed me askance, not hiding his suspicion. Then, shrugging he said, “my question stands. How does all this myth aid our cause?”

I took Brenner’s look as a cue to answer. “If Orley is here on behalf of the Iron Tribunal,” I said, “then he’s breaking the Riven Order. Normally I’d say it’s impossible, but the old rites have been unreliable ever since the East burned. Could be the Infernal Realm is taking advantage, same way not all the Dead need invitations into homes anymore.”

Brenner rubbed at his eyes. I doubted he’d gotten much sleep, especially with his son still hovering at the edge of death in a sickbed. “And how, pray tell, does that help us?”

“Means we can banish him,” I said. Then, with a shrug I added, “or seal him more permanently. Traditionally, any dark spirit in the subcontinent has difficulty keeping a grip on their presence here. The Heir’s blessings weaken them, especially anywhere you have Her priesthood or vassal demigods nurturing those blessings. Orley’s here without an invitation, which means he’s putting a lot of his power into just being able to act at all.”

“Seemed to me he has power enough,” Ser Lydia, the knight I’d briefly interacted with at Orcswell, said. She’d lost a brother during the fighting, and she hadn’t gotten any sleep either. She still wore her war gear, and looked fit for some vengeance.

She had a point. I rubbed at my chin, idly feeling at the stubble I hadn’t tended in some days. Then, in a flash of realization, I understood.

“Those symbols he carved — the one in the sky, and on the ground when he summoned the hellhounds.” I met Ser Kross’s gaze again. “I’d be willing to bet those were part of some Orkaelin rite, drawing power from his home realm.”

Kross nodded thoughtfully, folding his arms into his heavy gray cloak. “They did have the feel of Art to me. No doubt it is some technique given to him by his Zosite masters.”

Brenner’s patience, already tenuous, came very near breaking. “I do not care what is required,” he said in a very quiet, very dangerous voice. “I do not care what he is, or what it takes to be rid of him. Ser Kross, Master Alken, you were both brought here for one purpose. See it done, or so help me I will petition the Church for an inquisition. If it takes the death of every hedge witch and village necromancer for a hundred miles, I will see my home purged of evil. Do you understand?”

The clericon turned a shocked gaze on her master. “My lord…”

He held up a hand, stalling the old priest. “No single Thing of Darkness is so powerful that it can survive a hundred Aureate crusaders, and if Orley represents a nation of divine apostates, I will have the precedent to call for Crusade. I do not make this threat lightly. Take care of it, or I will escalate.”

If this threat shocked Ser Kross, it did not show on his marble-calm face. He only bowed his head in understanding. Many of those present at the council looked scandalized by their liege-lord’s pronouncement. Others looked excited. They probably liked the idea of being at the forefront of a new crusade. It had been most of three centuries since the last.

I wonder if any of them truly considered just who that war would be fought against. Only seven years since the last great Recusant army had been routed, and they still hadn’t had enough.

Brenner, at least, didn’t look exactly eager to carry out his threat. His eyes remained fixed on the table, brooding and shadowed by exhaustion. I wondered how many men in history had made terrible choices with just that expression.

“I think there’s one thing we’re all missing here,” Ser Gors said, his pale, over-large eyes almost gleeful. He’d been one of those who’d shown interest at the suggestion of crusade. “Or we’re all choosing to overlook.”

Brenner sighed. “And what might that be, Ser Gors?”

The pale knight turned his glittering eyes to Emma, who’d remained silent throughout the conversation. “If these Zosite, these dark angels of Hell, are the jailers of demons and their ilk, and their champion is here to claim the last Carreon… then are we not placing ourselves on the side of darkness by defending her?”

That brought another heavy silence. Emma, who’d been unfazed by all attention directed her way until then, went very still, her face draining of color.

Brenner, who’d fought this battle on the girl’s behalf, said nothing. It was the old clericon who ended up challenging the serpentine knight.

“Have you not been listening?” The old priest paced around the table, white cloth whispering around her. She stopped behind Emma’s chair and placed a hand on the young woman’s shoulder, defying all the superstition and fear the rest of that room of warriors displayed. “Orkael is no realm of justice — our God-Queen refused them their tribute of souls, and delved for us the peaceful halls of Draubard in place of their iron pits. Perhaps the Carreons are responsible for many crimes, but Lady Emma is under our protection. You would do well to remember that, Ser Gors.”

Shock, perhaps even some confusion, transformed Emma’s haughty features. I imagine she hadn’t expected the resident clergywoman of all people in that room to defend her.

Ser Gors glared at the priest, who held his gaze without so much as blinking. Then, shrugging he said in a bored tone, “I was only pointing out that there must be some reason why this fiery realm wants the girl. Is this only Orley’s vengeance, or is his vendetta a convenience for some darker purpose?”

Deflection it might have been, but the snake had a point.

Finally, sighing wearily, Brenner stood from his high-backed chair. “We will not be turning Lady Emma over to this creature. Kross and Alken will expel Jon Orley, and that will be the end of it.”

The knights stood and bowed to their lord. Brenner waved a hand in dismissal, stalking out of the chamber. His clericon followed him. No doubt he went to check on his son.

After the knights and other attendants had all departed, Emma approached me. She wore a troubled expression. When she opened her mouth to speak, I cut her off before she’d gotten out a word.

“Don’t say it.”

She snapped her mouth closed, tilting her head in confusion. “Say what?”

“You were about to say something like, what if that gecko-eyed fop is right, and I really do deserve to get whisked off to hell because of some fucked up stuff people related to me did a hundred years ago?”

Emma blushed and shuffled. “I was actually going to suggest leaving the castle. If Orley attacks this place—”

“He won’t,” I said firmly. “It won’t come to that.”

Emma’s brow furrowed. “You have a plan?”

“Something like that.” I half turned, then fixed her with my sharpest look. “You’re going to stay here until I get back.”

“I most certainly will not!” Emma took a step forward, lifting her chin stubbornly. “If you’re going back to Orcswell, I will be there as well.”

I held her gaze a long moment, our mutual glares clashing like opposing shields. She did not back down, even after a full minute.

I knew I should make her stay. I wanted her to stay — she was the noble lady, the damsel in the classical sense, the one in truest danger. My instincts shouted at me to keep her secure while I went to war on her behalf.

But was it the responsible thing to do, or just how I wanted things to play out? Nath’s orders might have been vague, but she hadn’t told me to just keep her charge safe. Whatever else, I represented her interests.

Doesn’t mean you can’t try for a positive outcome, I thought.

Emma’s amber eyes, huge and avian, didn’t blink as she stared at me. She didn’t speak, didn’t beg or cajole. After a while I nodded.

“Fine. Bring your sword. We leave within the hour.”

Emma let out a sigh, and there was a bit of relief in it. “Good. I will meet you at the gate.”

She marched off with determined vigor. Haughty and proud one moment, and as excited as a lad going on his first hunt the next. Snorting, I turned to go my own way. I had my own preparations to make.

Kross barred my exit. Inclining his head, he gave me the smallest of smiles. “Leaving?”

I paused, eyeing him a moment before answering. “Yes.”

“You and the young lady?” Kross’s gray eyes drifted to where Emma had departed through the chamber’s doors. “I doubt his lordship would approve.”

I held his gaze a long moment. “And are you going to tell him, Ser Kross? Or try to stop us?”

“…No. I do question, however, the wisdom of this.”

Admittedly, I questioned it too. “She’s not a damsel,” I said. “And this is her curse. Best to let her face it head on, and keep her where my axe can reach. ‘Sides, not sure I want to leave her here with the likes of Gors suggesting they all hand her over to the devils.”

“Ah. Yes, I noted your expression when he suggested that.”

He said nothing for a while, and I felt the tension in the air like the afternote of a plucked harp string. He knew, now, that I was no simple vagabond adept. What would he do with the information? What did he think, or believe, or intend? After I’d spilled everything in the chapel I’d left in a hurry, angry at myself and more than a bit embarrassed at my display of emotion.

Kross didn’t bring it up. He simply said, “you have a plan, then?”

I grimaced. I’d been able to pretend with Emma, but Kross saw too much. Dismissing other concerns I answered him. “Not as such. Mainly, I just don’t want to leave Orley there and have my binding fail while I’m not present. More than that… I want answers, and I can’t get them here at the castle.”

Kross nodded, his expression becoming thoughtful. “I have my own rite to prepare, though it may take me time. You should wait, so we can deal with this together.”

I stepped past him to the door, waving a hand dismissively. “You’re welcome to join the fun whenever you’re ready, Kross. For now, I’ve got a devil to chat with.”

Two, in fact. It was high time I had a conversation with Bloody Nath.