Arc 5: Chapter 15: The Brazen Woods

Arc 5: Chapter 15: The Brazen Woods

One we were back out in the hall, Catrin reached out to grab my arm. Her fingers curled around my left elbow, an almost unconscious habit she’d kept for most of the time we’d known one another.

“Hey big man, slow down. You look pissed.”

I stopped, gritting my teeth. “I am pissed.”

Catrin stepped up to my side, pressing close. It seemed a very intimate position, one she didn’t usually take in front of others, but when a heavyset lordling passed us with a woman on either arm I understood.

I calmed down, getting myself under control. People are watching.

Even still, I couldn’t quite keep the bitter edge from my voice. “That man is sick. The way he talks about you and the others, like…”

I couldn’t even put it into words.

“Like we’re pieces of meat?” Catrin asked in a quiet voice.

I glanced at her serious face, then nodded sharply.

“That’s every pimp across the sphere of the world,” Catrin told me with mild reprimand. “And he was probably playing it up to get under your skin. He’s a creep, Al, but he’s no Orson Falconer. Don’t let him shove you around.”

“He had this woman with him,” I said. “She almost seemed the worse of the pair.”

Catrin shuddered against my side. “Saska.”

“Who is she?” I asked.

“His enforcer,” Catrin said bitterly. “When anyone gets on the ‘Keep’s bad side, he sends her. I don’t know what she is, but she’s not like the rest of us. She’s been around longer than anyone else, and she’s absolutely loyal to him. Not someone to mess with.”

I sighed, forcing calm over myself. “Let’s collect Emma and Hendry. Who’s this man you’re taking me to? Is he here in the inn?”

Catrin was quiet a moment. I got the sense she didn’t want to answer, and did so only reluctantly.

“He’s… it’s hard to explain. I’ll tell you more after we get the other two.”

We moved out into the smoky chaos of the common room. Catrin remained pressed to my side like many of the other girls were with the guests. Even through my armor, I could feel her tension. I doubted my own helped much.

Not caring who might see, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She relaxed, leaning in closer.

We found Hendry and Emma up on the balcony. Emma was leaning against the railing, shoulder to shoulder with a petite young woman with blond curls who was telling a story with animated gestures. My squire seemed far more relaxed than normal, her amused expression genuine rather than condescending.

Hendry was another story entirely. He sat at one of the tables with one of Catrin’s peers on either side of him, both older than him and dressed in bright makeup and garish colors. One, the shorter of the two, was practically hanging off his arm. The other was tall, more cool in demeanor, but both had the boy trapped in his seat while they plied him with questions.

“So you work in the palace?” The shorter one was asking. “But that must be scary. Those walls are so high, and it’s always got terrible weather!”

Hendry swallowed. “It’s, uh, not so bad. It’s quiet higher up. Almost peaceful. And you can’t even hear the wind or the waves when you’re…”

“Inside?” The taller one finished for him, smiling innocently.

Hendry’s face turned beet red. “I, uh…”

“That boy really needs to get laid,” Catrin muttered to me. “I can set it up, if you want.”

“Maybe when the city isn’t burning down around us,” I said dryly, then raised my voice to get their attention. “Emma. Hendry.”

Emma rolled her head over to look at me, while the pretty girl at her side pouted in disappointment. Hendry almost shot out of his seat, dislodging his hanger on in the process.

“We’re going.”

Catrin looked at one of the pair who’d been working Hendry. “What’s the word, Eilidh?”

The taller wench in the set shrugged. “Had a few faces give them curious looks, but no one snooped about.”

Her eyes went to me, and she pursed her lips. She had a face more handsome than fair, long nosed and strong jawed, and wore very little in the way of makeup or jewelry compared to the others.

I inclined my head to her. “Thank you for looking out for my people.”

Eilidh let out a throaty laugh. “Ah, so you’re Cat’s friend. Good to finally meet you.”

She turned to Catrin. “You should talk to Joy. She’s been out of sorts for days.”

Catrin frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Eilidh shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s Joy. Just talk to her.”

“I’ve got orders from the boss,” Catrin sighed. “Just keep an eye on her for me?”

One of the other girls cut in. “Oh, the big moon’s going to be full soon. Joy is always a bitch around this time.”

“She’s always that,” another quipped.

Eilidh reached out and squeezed Catrin’s shoulder. “I’ll watch, but don’t wait too long.”

When they’d moved off, I turned to Catrin. “Do you need to take care of that?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “This is more important. And I should warn you, Al…”

Hendry and Emma both stepped up close to listen over the din. I looked down at the dhampir, curious.

Catrin sighed. “I know you’re a champion of the realms, big bad axeman in red, all that… but the old benefactors, the Keeper’s real patrons?”

Her expression was deadly serious. “They’re old powers, and not the nice kind. You’re not going to like this.”

I glanced at Emma, and suspected she had the same thought. “I did a job once for the Briar Angel,” I said. “I’ll endure.”

My bravado didn’t seem to mollify Catrin in the slightest. She kept staring at me with cool intensity.

“Then let’s go,” she said. “I’ll show you the way.”

She turned to go. Emma and Hendry followed when I nodded for them to, but I felt a hand on my arm before I did. I turned and found the older-looking member of the barmaid trio, Eilidh, looking at me with an odd expression.

“Yes?” I asked, wary.

I knew not all the inn’s inhabitants were vampiric like Catrin, but none of them were ordinary humans. Changelings mostly, with some odder things mixed in. I didn’t feel any particular presence from the tall, freckled woman, but was still cautious.

When she spoke, Eilidh’s voice had a coldness to it. Anger, I realized. “Have you been telling Catrin to stop feeding?” She demanded.

I blinked. “What?”

The woman’s lip curled, more the start of a snarl than a sneer. “She’s been fasting for far too long, and she’s acted different ever since she started seeing you. I know what you are…”

She sniffed, tilting her chin up defiantly. “You might disapprove of what we do, holy man, what we are, but you don’t have any right to judge us.”

She did sneer then. “Especially since you’ve been partaking.”

I shook my head, confused. “I’m no priest. And I haven’t told Cat to stop anything. She’s…”

“What?” Eilidh demanded when I trailed off.

“She’s fed on me more than once,” I admitted, uncomfortable. “I never told her to stop.”

I remembered how she’d refused to take my blood the last time we’d been together. I hadn’t understood it, and hadn’t given it much thought at the time.

Eilidh searched my face a moment, then relaxed. “I see. I just assumed…”

“What?” I asked in exasperation. “That I’ve been guilting her into starving herself?”

Eilidh sighed and adjusted some of her brown locks. “Maybe you didn’t tell her to stop, but that doesn’t mean you’re not the reason. Cat’s a smart girl, but she’s younger than many of us.”

She jabbed a sharp, painted nail into my chest. “Don’t confuse her. It’s dangerous.”

I heard my name. The others had stopped by the stairs to wait for me. When I turned back, Eilidh had left. Confused and a bit unsettled, I went with my group.

I put the encounter with Eilidh out of my mind as we followed Catrin deeper into the inn. She brought us to a hall on the first floor, not unlike the one that’d led me to the Keeper’s private room. This one went on and on, over a hundred feet. Further than the creaky old building I’d glimpsed outside should have accommodated.

I wondered how far the inn’s spaces could stretch, just how many secret corners and hidden rooms it actually held. If the Keeper got angry enough, could he trap me in here forever in endlessly looping corridors, or rooms with no exits?

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An unsettling thought. Not all power is wielded at the edge of a blade. I shouldn’t have forgotten that, or needed to have a glorified brothel owner remind me of it with cheap mind games.

“Where are we going?” I asked Catrin, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet.

She paused, turning to look at us. Emma and Hendry stood behind and to either side of me. I suspected their faces mirrored my curiosity.

With a resigned look, Catrin explained. “We’re going to see one of the original patrons, a sort of benefactor to the Backroad. There are several of them, and you could say they’re the inn’s investors. They’re all powerful, secretive, and dangerous.”

She gave me a pointed look. “If the Keeper thinks one of them can help you, then they definitely can. However, they don’t serve him. You understand?”

I nodded. “He’ll exact his own price.”

Catrin smiled grimly. “Yes, and he’ll be a much bigger bastard about it. Unlike the ‘Keep, these guys don’t water themselves down to make customers comfortable. Be ready for trouble.”

“What can you tell me about this count?” I asked.

Catrin shrugged. “Not much. I’ve just heard the name. All I can say is that he’s probably dangerous, and probably not human.”

“An elf?” Hendry asked, curious.

“Could be,” Catrin said. “Lot of elves aren’t your pretty dancing in the glades, giving magic swords to heroes type. Lot of them are more like the monster under the bed.”

“Or the devil in the dark castle,” Emma muttered.

I took a deep breath. “Is he here in the inn?”

“No,” Catrin said. “But we can get to where he lives from the inn. A lot of places with close ties to us have back doors.”

“The Wend.” I cursed. “Is it a safe path?”

“No,” Catrin admitted sheepishly.

I looked to my two followers. “Neither of you have to come if you don’t want.”

Emma sniffed. Hendry stood straighter, his face set in dour resolve.

Catrin led us to a door at the far end of the impossibly long hallway. It looked old and more elaborate than the rest, fashioned of dark oak, with a bronze latch engraved with the image of a snarling imp.

“I’ll guide you through the path beyond,” Catrin said. “And make sure you get back.”

“You’re coming with us?” Emma asked, surprised.

“The ‘Keep probably just expected me to show you the door,” Catrin said with a defiant grin. “But fuck him. I’ve got a stake in this. They almost killed me that night, too.”

She pulled out a ring of keys, sifted through it with her thumb until she found the one she needed, then put it into the latch. It turned with a solid noise, and the door swung open.

Cool wind, smelling of autumn rather than summer, blew into the hall. I breathed deep, taken off guard by the sudden sensation I felt then. I smelled rotting leaves, sweet air, old trees.

Whatever lay on the other side of that door, it was very far away from Garihelm.

You’re needed here, I reminded myself. If you get stuck wherever that is…

I met Catrin’s eye, seeing my worry reflected in her face. I steeled myself. For too long, I’d been running around in circles trying to find my enemy. No more. If there was someone who could put Yith and his masters in reach of my axe…

I’d make a devil’s deal, if I had to. My soul was tarnished already, and there was more at stake than my own penance.

I stepped through the door.

We passed into a forest. It was an old wood, the trees tall and bare, the air holding a prewinter chill as it moved in rustling eddies through the scene.

Above, gray clouds moved low and fast over the sky. There was no rain, or thunder, but the air smelled of bad weather.

Glancing back, I saw a dilapidated old shack sitting in the middle of the forest behind us. It had rotted down to its frame, revealing the cold remnants of the stone hearth inside.

Catrin drew up next to me, nodding to the woods ahead. A narrow, winding path cut through them. I could barely see it for all the rotted leaves piled on the forest floor.

“Where are we?” Hendry asked, disturbed. “This doesn’t look like Reynwell at all.”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Catrin shrugged. “World’s a big place, kiddo.”

“We’re in the Wending Roads,” I told the boy. “Or a Burrow, probably.”

“Like the Fane?” Emma asked.

I nodded. “This one seems much deeper. The Fane is practically on the border, but this…”

Something about the scene ahead felt wrong, in a way I couldn’t name. Alien.

Hendry’s face went pale. Emma only pressed her lips together, hiding her own unease.

I didn’t blame them for their nervousness. The Wending Roads are a truly unnatural realm, a place where phantasm is more real, where even sunlight or rain might not be what they seem. They bore through reality in tangled lines, like wormholes. Some connect one place to another in the material world, or hide entire lands lost and forgotten, but others…

There are stranger hinterlands than any path of the Wend. I had to hope we hadn’t drawn near one.

Catrin led us into those autumnal woods. As we went, the scene grew even stranger. At first, it could have been passed off as any late season forest across the land, save for the odd motion of the clouds above.

But as we went deeper, a strange tint seemed to creep over the environment. Harsh, yellow, a brassy pallor that overtook the trees, the leaves, the clouds, the air.

“There’s something wrong with the trees,” Emma warned quietly.

We followed her gaze, and immediately I saw what she meant. As we’d gone further down the path, the tall, quiet trees had become thinner and more twisted. But it wasn’t just their shape that’d changed. Most of them seemed perforated somehow, like honey combs, their bark holding an almost metallic sheen somewhere between green and yellow.

The wind picked up, and the forest filled with an undulating, brassy chorus of sound. Deep and sonorous, it sounded as though the hollow trees gave voice to some mournful dirge. The sound rose and fell in intensity as the wind carried across the woods, growing teeth-grindingly loud before muting into the far distance.

It lasted a long time. We all paused to listen.

“They’re like pipe organs,” Hendry said. His hand had been lingering on his sword’s hilt since we’d arrived. He held it now in a white knuckle grip.

“We’re close,” Catrin said. She’d grown more subdued the further we’d gotten.

As we started walking again, I drew close to her and lowered my voice. “Are you alright?”

She wore heavy makeup, including white powder on her face, but even still I could tell there was a tightness to her jaw. Her eyes hadn’t stopped moving once since we’d passed into the Burrow.

“I don’t like this place,” Catrin told me. “It’s like the air is trying to get into my skin. It itches.”

I could smell something like rot in the air, sickly-sweet, but I didn’t get the same sensation Catrin described. Beneath us, the fallen leaves seemed hard and brittle. Almost like glass.

“I’m with you,” I said.

She gave me a nervous smile, but I could tell she was still unsettled.

Should have sent Hendry back, I thought, berating myself. He’s not properly warded for this.

I glanced back at the boy, who was hovering over Emma’s shoulder in an almost unconsciously protective manner. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care, her own gaze roaming over the pipe organ trees. Like the Hunting, her hand lingered at the pommel of her sword.

I had my powers, and Emma had her dwarven chain mail and sword to repel malignant od. Catrin was undead, and half-real realms held little danger for her. Hendry, on the other hand, was very vulnerable to possession and enchantment. I’d been so fixed on my goal, I hadn’t considered it.

We crested the slope of a hill, and the forest opened up into a wide glade. The ground looked cracked and dry, no signs of the growth evident everywhere else.

In the center of that field rose a manor. It wasn’t quite a castle — it had a single broad tower of stone and some other fortified sections, but the rest was mostly wood and made for lavish comfort, not war. A moat, very deep and black, encircled the manor with a drawbridge leading to the entrance. The bridge was lowered.

Beyond the field with the old manor, the forest of brass stretched off into a blood red sky which seemed to drink the sulfurous clouds.

“Behold the home of the Lord Laertes, Count of the Brazen Woods.” Catrin proclaimed with theatrical melancholy. The gravity of the moment was undercut a bit when she immediately sneezed, then rubbed at her nose with a finger. “Bleeding Gates, this air.”

“So this is the home of a man whom even the Keeper of the Backroad Inn answers to,” Emma said thoughtfully, studying the scene with detached interest. “Is he very powerful?”

“Theoretically,” Catrin said. “I don’t know if he could arm wrestle either of our boys here, but he’s probably not the type to need to.”

Hendry turned to me. “What’s our plan, ser?”

I thought a moment before speaking. “The Keeper is a treacherous bastard,” I said aloud.

“Hey!” Catrin shot me an angry look. “That’s my employer you’re talking about.”

We all stared at her, and she lifted her hands in surrender. “Fine, he’s a bad guy. Please, continue. Ser.”

I sighed. I couldn’t even give a motivating speech in an eldritch hinterland properly.

“I don’t know if he was just playing a con,” I continued, “but the Keeper implied to me that the remnants of the Recusant Powers might be involved in this mess in the capital. I’ve long suspected the Vykes have been up to something, and that they’re behind Yith, but I never had any proof. Without proof, the Round won’t do anything to risk war against Talsyn.”

“Why not just kill them?” Emma asked. “And claim it was the Choir who ordered it. I doubt anyone would complain, least of all the gods.”

“Talsyn wouldn’t see it any different,” I told her. “They don’t consider the Choir of Onsolem to be truly divine or worthy of obeisance. It’s one of the original points of contest that caused them to fracture from us.”

Hendry frowned, confused. “How can they deny the divinity of God’s own angels?”

“They see them as little different from elves and other immortals in the world,” I explained. “And… I don’t know, Hendry. Go ask a Recusant. I’ve killed a bunch of them, it doesn’t make me an expert. The point is that I can’t just play the rogue vigilante with the Vykes. But if they are behind this, and this count can give me the proof I need…”

I looked at the manor. “Or at the very least give me a path to the demon they’ve leashed, then I can stop whatever this scheme is before it plays out.”

Perhaps I could have spent days running about the city, collecting assorted facts from the members of my lance, interrogating witnesses and running down suspects. I could have been clever, politically savvy, spotted all the connections until the full breadth of the web made its shape clear before my eyes.

But I am no great strategist. I am a blunt instrument. More than that, I am an Alder Knight and the Headsman of Seydis. There is often a devious sorcerer to show one such as me the path.

I just had to be ready to pay the price.

As we crossed the field to the lonely manor, another evil wind came to fill the valley with more sonorous bellowing. Catrin shivered, baring her teeth as though to hiss at the hills, while Hendry just took a deep breath and kept his eyes fixed forward.

“I think I might like it,” Emma said after the sound faded. “It’s quite aesthetic, isn’t it?”

“Your Carreon is showing,” I told her. Emma shot me a withering glare, then pointedly turned her nose up.

We reached the drawbridge. The manor seemed much larger up close, looming five stories tall in some places, with many sections decorating its face. The stone tower, perhaps part of an older, more functional structure, was the tallest portion. It connected to a stone walkway over the fourth level, with what looked like bedrooms or attic sections.

The entrance lay atop a short flight of stairs, consisting of a tall, arched door of white wood framed in brass. Scanning the balconies, I saw no guards or sentries. No one to greet us either. The mansion remained still, silent, and dark.

“I’ll go first,” I told them.

Catrin nodded eagerly. “I’m alright with that.”

I gave her my best put-upon look, then steeled myself and stepped forward. My cloak glided over the planks of the bridge in a quiet rustle. I had my hood down, my shroud tossed back on one shoulder to reveal my axe. I rested a hand on Faen Orgis’s head. Not a threat, but I didn’t want to disguise who I was.

The Briar cloak I’d been given by Nath seemed to hug my frame more tightly than normal, as though protective or perhaps frightened. Could the ensorceled thing feel fear?

I crossed the bridge, looked up at the looming face of the manor, and called on the embers of power within me. When I spoke, my words carried the metallic ring of aura.

“I am Alken Hewer, Knight of the Accorded Realms and Headsman of Seydis. I come at the recommendation of the Keeper of the Backroad Inn, seeking your council. May my companions and I enter your hall?”

I waited for ten seconds after the last echo of my speech had faded. Then, with an anticlimactic lack of volume or weight, the white doors swung open to reveal a dark interior.

My companions came up behind me. Catrin patted me on the back of my arm. “That was very good,” she said. “Your voice is incredible when you do that thing with it. Very hot.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. Emma snickered, while Hendry muttered the words of a prayer.

“May the rightful queen of Heaven give strength to our arms, pride to our hearts, and breath to our lungs. May She carry us on strong, fast winds. May Her wisdom grace us, Her resolve guide us, Her faith bind us. Blessed are we, and may the Gates reopen.”

He didn’t speak with any self-righteous airs or forcefulness. His soft voice had a quiet, restrained quality. He made the sign of the auremark over his chest, a long arc from shoulder to neck to shoulder, followed by a line from brow to sternum. He did it properly, swiftly, with the decisive motions of practice.

I felt a warmth touch the air. It settled in me, notable even with the flicker of aureflame already there. Hendry might not have awakened his soul, or any particular power to call his own, but all living things have the potential. His will, his faith, was real and tangible to my senses.

And not just mine. Catrin took a step away from the young knight, a sour look on her face as though Hendry suddenly exuded a bad smell.

“Thank you,” I told him. He nodded, making a good show of stoicism. A knight never shows fear, after all.

I wondered if I would be able to keep hold of my own. I felt little terror of some eldritch lord hiding in this strange wilderness, but I did feel fear for those I’d brought with me.

Taking a deep breath and pushing my doubts down, I stepped into the House of Count Laertes.