Arc 2: Chapter 3: Oathbound

Arc 2: Chapter 3: Oathbound

The hunting horns sounded before I’d drawn within three miles of Strekke’s border. Wounded, limping my way through the scattered woods, I knew I couldn’t outrun them.

Didn’t matter if I could move fast, as much blood as I left in my wake. The child necromancer’s undead bloodhounds could track me until I collapsed.

I needed a way out.

Ghosts haunted my steps as I drew deeper into the wilderness. Drawn by the scent of my blood and my Alder-alloyed soul, they congregated in the shadows until the woods seemed nearly alive with their writhing shapes. Some mocked me, or begged for my help, or muttered in confusion. A few tried to encourage me along, but the more benign voices became lost in the din.

The horns sounded again, closer.

I needed a way out.

There wasn’t one. I felt a cold tendril of despair coil its way through me.

It shouldn’t have surprised me then, when she appeared.

A black cloud moved over the moons, casting all the woods and fields in shadow. That shadow was a tangible thing, an aura just as real as my own magic and countless times more potent. It made its presence known in the forest with the impact of a heavy, bloodied hoof against the ground, with a guttural snort and the rattling of rusted chains.

I stopped my march as an enormous destrier, of the kind once used in war before the myriad breeds of chimera had proliferated, moved to block the field in front of me. It snorted, bloodshot eyes rolling to fix on me with eager malice.

“Do you have anything better to do than follow me around?” I asked the nightmare’s rider, even as a cold dread ate its way into my veins.

A porcelain mask resembling a beautiful face smiled down at me, empty eyes narrowing with mirth. The slow spreading of that smile was like a wound cutting its way across a moon. Though dark clouds had drawn a curtain over the stars, the fallen angel exuded her own eerie light.

Nath patted the head of her enormous warhorse and tilted her own to one side, waves of black hair rippling as though underwater. “This is but one of my many shadows, knightling. Unlike my brethren on their high mountain, I have not diminished myself for the sake of you mortals, and can divide myself as I please.”

I stared warily up at the shining figure. She’d dressed differently since the last time we’d met. In the woods beyond Vinhithe, she’d worn a flowing white gown like some faerie queen out of legend. This time, the Dark Lady of Urn had donned a suit of plate mail fashioned all of poisonous green metal, its seams glowing faintly as though lit from within.

Noticing that I’d noticed the change in wardrobe, Nath laughed. The sound made night flowers wither in the grass. “I told you when last we met, knightling! I am refashioning myself as a warlord. For war does approach. Powers are stirring, my sweet, and we had best all be prepared.”

Horns sounded again. Closer. I tensed and grit my teeth. “If you’re here to make the same offer as last time—”

Nath waved a hand, as though batting my words aside. “Last time we met, you were on the brink of death. No, I don’t expect you to make reasonable choices, Alken Hewer, not when it is only your own body and soul on the line.”

“Then are you just here to watch me die?” I asked. It seemed likely.

“Not quite,” Nath said, flashing ivory teeth. “I am here to give you your next task, Headsman. You have delivered the Choir’s doom to Emery Planter, Earl of Strekke. You are now free to conduct other business, yes?”

“Not your business,” I growled. “You might be Onsolain, Nath, but you aren’t Choir anymore. I don’t take orders from you.”

“Tsk, tsk.” Nath waved a finger back and forth. “I imagine, if it were my sister here instead of I, you would not speak so rudely. Discourtesy does not become a knight of the Alder.”

Nath’s sister, the Lady Eanor, had the benefit of not being a tyrannical devil who’d haunted the land for centuries. I tightened my lips into a thin line rather than saying as much out loud, mainly because she had a point about courtesy. There’d been a time I wouldn’t have spoken to anyone that way.

When had I lost that chivalric mien? Sometime during the past decade, in my tenure as the Headsman of Seydis, executioner and doomsman of the Divine Choir?

Earlier?

“You have been badly wounded,” Nath said, touching her breast. Any sympathy there meant little when she inhaled and shuddered, as though drunk on my discomfort. “But you should not forget what you are. We have not.”

“Whatever else,” I said, forcing calm despite the approaching sound of hunting horns blown by dead lips. “I won’t kill anyone for you.”

“I do not require you to kill anyone,” Nath said, inspecting torn, bloody nails. “And besides, you have no room to refuse. Your services have been leant to me by my brothers and sisters.”

I blinked. “You lie.”

“I never lie,” Nath said, her pale face and musical voice hardening, like ice eating across a window pane. She relaxed and settled back on her saddle. “Tell him, spirit.”

Movement in the corner of my vision drew my attention. Another shadow lurked there at the tree line, more substantial than the other ghosts. Not by much, but I recognized the easy slouch, the too-bright glint of gray eyes.

“Donnelly?” I asked, confused.

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The grizzled adventurer turned divine messenger stepped forward so Nath’s unearthly glow illuminated him. Stubble-faced, tall, ashen in death, he dressed more formally than when I’d last seen him — the herald of the Onsolain, clad in a greatcoat and rich cloak pinned at one shoulder. His unkempt hair and tired eyes undercut much of the sense of command that ensemble might have imparted. “It’s true, Al. The Choir is lending your services to their Fallen sister.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” I snapped, losing hold of my temper. “She’s evil

.”

Nath scoffed.

I jabbed a finger at the Fallen, not caring about courtesy or chivalry or anything of the sort just then. “She’s been trying to subvert and conquer the subcontinent for over five centuries. There have been wars fought to keep her contained. She’s allied with the Briar!”

Donnelly gave me a tired shrug in response. “She’s a black sheep, it’s true, but she’s still part of the family. And, to be honest Al…” he sighed and took another step forward, ruffling his mop of brown hair. “The Onsolain have other enemies to worry about. The sentries they’ve got posted on the Fences have been bringing reports back for a few years now about stirrings in the continent. There’s more traffic from the west under the Accord, which means more chances for something nasty to slip through the net. And for all that…”

Nath finished for him. “For all of that, the whereabouts of the Archmagus are still unknown, and the wounds of his treachery may not heal for many generations of mortal kind.” Her lips quirked in amusement. “The power of Heavensreach is threatened, more so than it has been in an age. My kin can ill afford to be selective of their allies.” She didn’t quite hide the gloating note in her words.

More horns sounded, very close this time. I cursed and half turned, expecting my pursuers to burst through the trees even then.

Donnelly scowled and turned to Nath. “Do you mind?”

The Fallen’s empty-mask eyes fixed on the distant woods. “Ah, yes.” She lifted a pale hand, as though to order a cavalry charge, and the shadow beneath her macabre steed erupted. It grew wide, forming a pool of black fully teen feet in radius, then divided into a dozen splinters. Those shadows races into the surrounding trees, quick as foxes dashing for a kill.

Nath placed her hands on the nightmare’s reins as the beast stamped its thorny hoof restlessly. “We will not be disturbed.”

Without the immediate threat of capture and painful death, I took the time to think. I dismissed the idea that this might be some kind of trick. Donnelly was truly there, and I sensed no geas on him — none made by the dark hand of Bloody Nath, in any case. My Table-given powers told me that much, at least.

The idea that the Onsolain would cooperate with their Fallen sister was harder to swallow. Then again, they are immortal — perhaps five centuries of conflict with one of their own didn’t seem much more than a brief familial squabble, to their memory. And the world had sprouted more thorns than Nath’s, in recent years.

As for loaning my services… the idea galled me. I wasn’t some mercenary, to be tossed around masters for whatever bloody work needed doing.

I wasn’t. I performed the role of Headsman as a penance, but I still fought on the side of the angels, as it were.

And…

And my position involved doing whatever grim work the gods had need of. The kind they wouldn’t want to give some pious knight or cleric in a divine revelation, not without risking that piety. My faith wasn’t a loss they needed to mind. I was like a king’s executioner, or torturer — I had an unpleasant role, but one necessary to the stability of the realm.

Of course they would loan me to a dubious old enemy, if they thought it might aid their own cause. I was probably the only agent they had suited to the task.

Damn it.

I could refuse, and face the consequences. Could I get away with that?

“What do you need me to do?” I asked the Fallen, returning to the conversation at hand.

Nath leaned forward on her saddle, unsettling her steed. The fiendish horse seemed to hate its rider as much as it hated everything else. “I have a… disciple. I suppose you would call such a one a warlock. I grant this mortal favors and knowledge, and in return my own interests are served. Most recently, my intervention has been requested in a particular matter. I cannot intervene directly… I am still Onsolain.”

I didn’t like where this was going. “So you want me to intervene on your behalf.”

“Precisely!” Nath smiled and inclined her head. “I need a representative to act in my name, to serve my warlock where I may not. So, as my kin have loaned your service to me, I am loaning your service to my vassal. You will go, speak in my name, act as my arm, and do as my disciple commands. Do this to my satisfaction, and I shall be well pleased.”

“And if they ask me to slaughter a village?” I asked, not quite keeping the bite from my voice. “Assassinate a rival? I won’t be your bloody patsy, Nath.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“You will do as I command,” Nath replied, cold. “Or I shall take umbrage with the Choir for loaning me such an ill instrument, and you and they both shall reap the consequences.”

Donnelly winced. I bit off a curse. As far as threats went, she’d made an effective one. The consequences for abandoning my oath, not to mention renewing tensions between Heavensreach and the Briar, were not ones I wanted to contemplate.

“Besides,” Nath continued in a bored tone, as though she hadn’t just threatened to drag the whole subcontinent into another war, “I am not unreasonable. My warlock has asked for my aid in a specific matter, and your services are being granted in pursuit of that selfsame issue. My vassal shall be made aware that you are not a slave to be ordered about, and you hold the right of refusal for any request which threatens to compromise your existent oaths. Does this please you, Sir Headsman?”

“It doesn’t please me,” I groused. “But…” I glanced at Donnelly. “Do I have a choice?”

Donnelly shrugged. “You heard the devil woman, Al. I don’t think the Choir will be too happy if you snub her… just like they won’t be happy if you abuse their agent.” He directed that last at the Fallen. Nath only inclined her head, gracing him with a beatific smile.

I closed my eyes. The hunting horns sounded again, but they’d drawn further away. Nath’s shadows must have headed them off. Whatever else, she was good for her word. And dangerous as Hell.

Key word on Hell. I didn’t use hyperbole.

Even still, this felt like a fresh sort of compromise of what I’d once been. Perhaps it’s self indulgent of me to keep thinking of myself as a blessed paladin — I’d gone far down the lefthand path by that point. Even still, serving the whims of fallen demigods and their warlocks?

It didn’t sit right. And I didn’t see a way out of it.

I was oathbound.

Lias could have talked his way out of this, I thought. What I wouldn’t give to have the clever wizard around.

What I wouldn’t give to have any of my old comrades around. Donnelly was more a co-worker, and we hadn’t been close before the Fall.

“Tell me more about this warlock,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Who are they, and where am I supposed to go?”

Nath’s smile broadened, until it seemed to consume the whole of her face. A grinning shadow. “I will not have my proxy look so… battered.” She pursed her gray lips, studying me critically. “Take the time you need to make yourself presentable. I shall send a messenger with details soon.”

She turned her horse and vanished into the woods.

“Alken—” Donnelly started to speak.

“Save it.” Anger smoldered in me, heavy and poisonous. I started limping toward the woods. “Get me a path through the Wend. I’m going home.”