Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 2: Chapter 13: The Paladin

It got worse.

As I unhooked my axe from beneath my cloak, stepping back from Lorena’s towering gaunt form, the surrounding mist seemed to sink into the ground. I felt a shudder ripple through the earth, and a spike of dread shot through me.

The ground heaved, and dead hands began to burst from the surrounding graves. Ragged shapes crawled up from below, pale light clinging to their desiccated forms and shining in their hollow eyes. Thin, stretched limbs twitched with unholy energy.

Though they wore different bodies, I knew these dead. Lorena Starling hadn’t been the only rogue spirit to escape the clutches of the Underworld. She’d brought her castle’s garrison along with her.

Shit.

Rotten corpses animated by disquiet spirits shambled through the graves. As the ghosts tightened their grip on those stolen bodies, they began to move with more vigor. Not grace, per se, but they possessed an eerie sort of dexterity. At first they held no weapons, and wore only the threadbare remnants of whatever funeral garb the commonfolk who’d buried their loved ones here had dressed them in. However, as I watched, mist and witchlight began to form spears and axes, crested helms and breastplates, and all the accoutrements of a castle guard.

There were dozens of them. I recalled my desperate escape from Castle Strekke, and steeled myself for a hard fight. I’d been on my last legs when I’d dueled Emery Planter. Now, rested and healed, I didn’t feel like death and dismemberment were guaranteed.

Only likely.

The real threat towered above the others. Lorena Starling had become something worse than a mere ghost. I lifted my chin to her ghastly visage as it loomed over me, that serrated thing that resembled both a guillotine and a scythe clutched in her sharp claws.

I focused on the core of golden power in me, conjuring the image of a wall of gleaming shields in my mind. I felt my aura reshape itself at my will and the murmuring of ritual words. Pale light spread out from me, small and wan compared to the overbearing presence of the undead, but steady. I lifted my axe, almost as though to kiss the top of the bit. With a flash of light and a scattering of gilded petals, that same circle of ornate shields I’d imagined in my thoughts burst into life, each floating equidistant several feet from me to face in all directions, all circling me like orbiting bodies.

All Auratic Arts have names. They are writ into the very fabric of reality, along with the deeds and wills that gave birth to them. The phantasmal kite shields I summoned were part of a versatile technique named the Aureate Aegis by its creator, one of my Alder forebears, or simply the Aureshield. It makes for a strong defense, especially against purely supernatural foes, but it is short lived and draining. I could only hold it for a few seconds.

It is also very dramatic and flashy, which makes for an excellent cover.

The undead horde, including their ghastly leader, recoiled from the flash of consecrated aura I brought forth. As soon as their eyes were no longer on me, I ducked down and lunged forward through the low-clinging mist, moving through a gap I’d left within the circle of phantasmal shields. I went forward like a red wind, cloak fluttering, shimmering golden petals scattering around me. I took my axe in both hands and leapt, like a direwolf going for the kill, straight toward Lorena.

One of her guards fouled the early victory I’d hoped to claim. Valiant, or perhaps too far gone to disobey, a skeletal warrior stepped into my path with mist-formed shield raised. I clove through the shield, the gilded fire on my axe severing the ghost’s own magic, and split the corpse’s skull in the same blow.

It fell. Its lady rose. With a scream that might have stopped the small hearts of birds, she lashed out at me with her enormous weapon. I caught its edge on my own, but it had tremendous force. The blow threw me, rolling several times over graveyard dirt before managing to catch myself in a crouch. I bared my teeth at Lorena, furious at my failure.

Her own fury was far more impressive than my own, and my failed attempt at ending her had given the dead warriors time to surround me. The mob closed in, rictus grins leering large in my vision. The cold of their presence ate into my bones, and I suspected I’d be shivering to death if not for the core of holy flame burning in my aura.

I thought perhaps that might have been the end, then. I’d faced it many times. Fate, however, had other plans, and a wicked sense of irony.

“Hark, ye’ shades!”

Something passed over the graveyard. I can only describe it as a sea wind, briefly lived, which sent the mist rolling back. A white light flared beyond the horde of wights, which Lorena, her guard, and I all turned our eyes toward. At the center of that pale nimbus stood a tall figure, framed in the brightness as a shape only barely distinguishable from their own radiance. I could just make out the image of four silver wings, and…

A halo.

A voice like cathedral bells tolled across the grave field, striking the undead as a gale. “This land is not for you, restless ones. You have been offered sanctuary — you reject it at your peril.”

Lorena Starling screeched at the shining figure. “We have been offered a prison!”

“The Gates have yet to open,” the figure intoned. I heard the distinct sound of steel sliding against leather. The angelic presence lifted a sword blazing with white fire aloft. “Return to your own lands, ye’ dead. Return!”

“By whose authority?” Lorena hissed. Her warriors chattered, as though lifting their own cries in agreement with their lady.

“By Her authority. I compel you, in Queen Aureia’s name. Return.”

At the Command, and at the uttering of that most holy of all names, the Dead withered. Lorena shrank back to her original size, the reaper’s scythe in her hands crumbling to ash. She threw up her gaunt arms against the flare of light, keening. Around her, her soldiers began to crumble as the ghosts clinging to rotten, stolen bodies ripped themselves free of bone and sinew, flitting into the mists.

When Lorena saw her battalion in route, she let out a ghastly scream. “You! I know you! I do not fear you, wretched hound.”

“I do not need you to fear me,” the shining figure said, very calm.

The ghostly noble hesitated, skull-face writhing as though it were made of liquid. Then, snarling, she turned to me and lunged with outstretched claws.

I saw no reason to leave things to chance, or rely on an angelic savior. I’d already gathered power, and took Faen Orgis in both hands. I sent my own gilded aura into the elven weapon, and it sent its own power back into me. We formed a loop of power, causing my own presence in the world to assert itself.

It was my turn to loom larger. I couldn’t say exactly how I must have looked, but I could imagine — wrapped in my red cloak and pointed cowl, axe held in both hands low to my waist, my shoulders mantled in angry amber flame. Aura dramatizes the world, makes what it touches more surreal. The shadows within my cloak deepened, obscuring my features, until I became a vermillion phantom clutching a bloodstained axe.

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An image of death, much as she’d tried to make herself into.

Lorena balked. Then, with a wail of rage, she vanished into the mist along with her minions.

Fled. But not gone. I breathed out a sigh, feeling exhausted even from that brief exertion, and let the power I’d summoned dissipate unused. Then I turned to the stranger.

The dramatic light had faded, and a man clad in dark steel, storm-gray cloak wrapped around his shoulders, stepped toward me. Ser Kross, the knight-exorcist.

“Strange place for a stroll, Ser Alken of the Fane.” The man still had that wry smile plastered to his face. He’d pinned his gray cloak at one shoulder, so it fell heavier on one side than the other. Along with the smirk and one enlarged pauldron left free of the cloak, it gave him a distinctly asymmetrical look. He sheathed his weapon as he approached — an ordinary bastard sword with a leather wrapped hilt and no adornments now, rather than a beam of white light.

I glanced behind him, seeing no one else in the scattering mist. Ser Kross saw my look and held up a hand. “I’m alone,” he said. “His lordship and the younger Hunting have returned to Antlerhall. I’m here for… well.” He chuckled, adjusting his heavy cloak. “I imagine we’re both here for the same reason. Hunting ghosts, is it?”

I hesitated to reply. Ordained priests had the right to commune with the dead, but the Church frowned — and sometimes waved sharpened hooks — at most anyone else who did it. And, though he clad himself as a warrior, this man was also a priest.

Back at the manor, I hadn’t taken a hard look at the knight. Now I knew what he was, I studied him more carefully. I guessed him to be older than me, and without the lingering youth granted by elven magic those years showed in the graying of his receding hair, which formed a sharp widow’s peak above his brow. He indulged in heavy sideburns, keeping the rest of his sharp face clean. He stood perhaps six-feet-and-three-inches, and wore his armor easily, denoting a powerful build beneath.

It was his coloring I found most memorable, or perhaps unmemorable, about him. Not pale, not particularly dark, his hair all dark brown and gray, his eyes gray, his garments gray and black. The auremark etched into his breastplate, done with the Priory’s distinctive split wings, formed the only color on him.

At my hesitation, Ser Kross’s sardonic smirk faded. His eyes went to the nearby well, and the azsilver coin still gleaming with odlight on the ground. “Ah,” he said. “Seeking information from Draubard, were you? Then we had the same idea.” He fished at his belt pouches a moment, then produced a small ring of silver etched with spiraling designs. “I take it they were reluctant to share?” He lifted a dark eyebrow.

I didn’t want to tell him I had history with the spirits he’d helped repel. Too many questions I wouldn’t be willing to answer. Instead, nodding I said, “they gave me some information. I know why the revenant is hunting Lady Emma now, at least, and who he is.”

Both the knight-exorcist’s eyebrows lifted then. “Ah! That is excellent. I’ve heard some details from Lord Brenner, but it’s mostly all been vagaries, or his own personal history with the family. In truth, I don’t believe he knows much, or cares to. I don’t often ply my trade for people interested in the past — only burying it.”

He let out a breathy laugh. When I didn’t join in, he grew serious again. “I should properly introduce myself. I am Ser Renuart Kross. I serve the First Clericon in Durelyon.” He dipped into a martial bow.

It would have been smart to return the courtesy, to keep up this act of being a chivalric mercenary, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to lie to the genuine thing. I just inclined my head. Ser Kross lifted his eyebrow again at that, pursing his lips, but whether he suspected something or just thought I was being rude, I couldn’t say.

“Alken,” I said. “I…” I took a deep breath. I couldn’t. Not after I’d seen him use that sacrosanct magic, not with the echo of the Heir of Heaven’s true name on his lips. “I don’t have the honor of being a Ser. I was employed to protect Lady Emma from this dark spirit, and she told Lord Hunting I was a knight to impress him.” I shrugged.

Ser Kross nodded, his expression unreadable. “Yet, you are a sorcerer. I took you for an adept of some kind, but I’ve rarely felt such a strong aura. Sidhe magic?”

Surprised, I nodded. “Yes. That’s right.” It was close enough, anyway.

“I’ve fought alongside faerie knights before,” the exorcist said, smiling again. The smile had less condescending amusement in it this time, and I began to consider that I might have judged him too cynically. “Fierce comrades, if a bit fey.” He snorted at his own joke, shaking his head. “In any case, it is good to properly meet, Master Alken. I regret that unpleasantness back at the manor.”

I shrugged with one shoulder, propping my axe on the other and walking a short distance to pick up the fallen coin. “I thought the Huntings were organizing to chase this revenant down in force.”

“They are,” Ser Kross said, his tone becoming almost placating. “But I’ve found that, at times, it is best to let the powerful do as they will, and ensure no one’s forgotten to check the privies for leaks. Quietly.”

I snorted then, tossing the coin a few times and catching it, the motion an aid to my thoughts. “Right. So, you were going to ask the dead for information. Well, I don’t think you’re going to get much out of the spirits here, now. I know something of the history here, but I still don’t know how to track this revenant down.”

“You are an adept,” Ser Kross said, frowning. “You believe you can banish it?”

I canted my head to one side. “Maybe. I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with. How about you? What have you learned?”

“Nothing much. I only arrived shortly before Lady Emma returned from her sojourn with you, and there have been no attacks in some weeks, so far as I’ve heard.”

“But there have been attacks.” I tapped my axe against one shoulder, thinking about my next step. I suspected I might not have seen the last of Lorena Starling, but that wasn’t a problem I could act on. I could protect my charge, ideally in a preemptive rather than reactionary way.

After a moment of silence, Ser Kross drew himself up and placed a hand on his scarred breastplate. “Allow me to make a proposition. We are both after the same creature, and both interested in protecting the people of this demesne. Why not join forces? The priests have lent me a small bit of Holy Light. Between that, and the faerie magic you possess, I believe we may be able to stand against this Thing of Darkness.”

He stretched out a gauntlet-clad hand. I blinked at it, taken aback.

In all honesty, I didn’t want to agree, not at first. My knee-jerk reaction was to work alone, to not accept his help or risk him learning more about me. I imagined he wouldn’t be so cordial if he found out exactly whose interests I served. But my mind flashed back to Caelfall, to Olliard and Lisette. Would things have gone differently if I’d joined forces with them? Could we have prevented the tragedy that ruined that place?

I don’t know. All I know is that I saw an echo of what I’d once been in Ser Renuart Kross, despite his unadorned armor and dour gray cloak.

I reached out and we gripped one another’s wrist. “I’m willing to hunt together, Ser Kross.”

The man’s angular face split into a grin. “Excellent! For now, though, what of the girl? Is she not with you?”

I pulled my hand back, folding it within my cloak. I fought down the wave of shame, like bile, that rose up in my throat. “She’s… resting.”

Ser Kross lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

He’ll find out eventually, I told myself, if we’re going to be cooperating. I explained to him what had happened back at the manor.

Ser Kross folded his arms, his expression troubled. “I knew the Carreons had a reputation for being somewhat fell, but it seems that blood boils hotter than I would have guessed. How bad are her injuries?”

“I don’t think they’re permanent,” I said, not sure if it were true. “The physik her maidservant brought in didn’t stay with her long.”

“Which could either mean they didn’t think it emergent, or were too frightened to stay near the cursed scion of House Carreon.” Ser Kross scoffed. “Honestly, it’s like they all think she’s some sort of walking disaster.”

“She is cursed,” I said. “And uses her powers recklessly. I regret injuring her, but she could have killed me.”

“You shouldn’t have sparred with her,” Ser Kross agreed, becoming stern.

I nodded, accepting the admonition. “I know. Well, at least she can’t get into much trouble confined to bed.”

“I’d prefer she be able to protect herself if necessary.” Ser Kross closed his eyes, lifting his chin as though seeking some answer in the night air. “Perhaps I can do something for her. Would you take me back to the manor with you?”

I glanced at him askance. Then I realized. “You can heal?”

He held up his hand. “I do not have the healing touch — my powers are suited more for warding and banishments. I am an exorcist. My companion, on the other hand, is capable of such.”

Companion? Furrowing my brow, I reached out with my senses toward the knight. I did feel… something. An unseen presence clinging to him, almost like an invisible cloak. I would have thought it just his aura, had I not been looking for something else. Once I did notice it, I could faintly see a slight shimmer of very pale light behind the man. I could make out folded wings, and thin arms wrapped about his neck as though he were carrying someone piggy-back style.

I recalled the image of wings I’d seen when he’d revealed himself to the ghosts. A minor servant of the Onsolain, I guessed. A cherub, or perhaps even a seraph. In addition to the fae, the land had many such spirits.

Mechanics aside, he was a paladin. A real one, not just the half functional remnants of one. He could heal.

Swallowing, feeling ill at ease all the sudden, I nodded. “I would be grateful for that, Ser Knight.”

Ser Kross bowed his head, expression grave. “It is the least I can do.”