Arc 1: Chapter 21: Bane

Arc 1: Chapter 21: Bane

When I woke again, the light in the woods had changed. Must be near dusk, I thought. Fell asleep again. Brassard’s going to give me a lecture.

As the fog in my skull cleared, I realized in a flash where I was. The following realization — that the old ranger was long dead — was like physical pain.

I lay in damp undergrowth in the sickly woods of Caelfall, not on the borderlands of Harodell. I was in my middle years, world-worn and tired, and not an eager young man set to challenge all the tyrants and monsters of Urn with nothing but a sword in hand.

Everything ached. I guessed I had whatever the doctor had injected me with to thank for that. Bastard old man, I thought. Not that I could blame him much — he had every reason to believe I was one of Orson Falconer’s agents. Still, if he’d only let me explain...

But I hadn’t really tried to explain, had I? I’d tried intimidating them instead, and the old physik’s clever apprentice had shut me down hard. I’d underestimated them both. Even still, they’d get themselves killed if I didn’t get back to the village and stop them from trying the castle’s defenses. If I wasn’t too late already.

I started to get up, but some subtle noise in the surrounding forest stopped me. I went still. Instinctively, the fingers of my right hand searched for my axe. Cold logic told me the doctor had probably taken my weapons, so I was surprised when I found it lying at my side.

Must not have wanted to leave me defenseless, I thought. Soft heartedness seemed a foolish trait for a pair of fiend hunters. They should have killed me.

Carefully, without a sound, I shifted my muscles to readiness and tightened my grip on the axe. There was another rustle. I felt a subtle coldness, an itch along my skin. Small voices whispered through my blood.

Something of the Dark was approaching. Some beast of the woods, perhaps, or one of the Baron’s creatures sent to deal with a loose end.

It wouldn’t find an easy meal. I waited, and when my instincts told me it was near I twisted, spinning into a low and savage kick. My boot connected with something. It fell with a yelp. I was on my feet and had my axe up in a flash.

For the second time that day I froze before delivering the killing blow. Instead I lowered the axe and stepped clear, biting off a curse. “Vampire.”

“It’s Catrin, you arse. Have trouble keeping names in that hard skull of yours? All the knocks you’ve taken to it, maybe?”

The young woman stood, wincing and lifting one foot clear of her skirts to rub at the ankle I’d bruised. She’d returned to her commoner’s garb, opting for a dark green dress that better blended with the shadowed woods and a pale gray bodice. Though, if she wanted to move unseen, the white frills along the various lines of the garment somewhat ruined the effect. “Bleeding Gates, you’re a jumpy one. Is every conversation with you going to involve violence?”

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“I turned into a varbat and flew around until I saw you lying in the mud.”

I glowered, unamused.

Catrin sighed and held up her hands in surrender. “I heard you got sent out on some errand for the baron and didn’t return with the Mistwalker who rode out with you. I put the screws to Quinn and he admitted you’d gone into an Irkwood. Alone. Whole castle suspects you’re dead.”

“So you came all the way out here?” I asked. We were several miles from the lake.

“I can move around quicklike if I want,” Catrin said with an evil little smile. “Maybe I can’t grow wings like some of my kind, but I’ve got my ways.”

I remembered how she’d moved through shadows during our conversation in the castle the previous night and didn’t comment. I turned and started walking, guessing at the direction of the road.

“Hey!” Catrin scurried to catch up, her skirts rustling through the brush. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the village,” I said. Before that old fool gets himself and his apprentice killed.

“Alright, fine enough, but could you at least tell me what happened out here? Why I found you lying on your face in the bloody wilderness?” She sniffed, then scrunched up her face in disgust. “Did you shit yourself?”

I paused, then sighed. I had. “I was drugged,” I told her.

Maybe I’d just let Olliard die.

“Drugged?” Catrin asked, confused. Her eyes fell like well trained arrows on the puncture wound in my neck.

I didn’t miss where her eyes lingered and turned, half raising the axe. She stepped back out of my reach, both of us going on guard at once.

“Not here to fight,” Catrin said slowly, watching me with wary eyes that shone just a touch too bright in the deepening forest gloom. “Came to make sure you were alive, not finish the job. You have my word, big man.”

“We are no threat to you,” I said. “If you seek revenge for the Sentinel, neither I nor this changeling were responsible.”

“We know this,” the hidden elf said. The slithering words were punctuated by more fey laughter from the wisps. “But there are grievances besides those held against Falconer to be answered. You have much to answer for, Alder Knight.”

A cold shiver ran through my blood. They knew what I was.

“Are you alright?” I muttered to Catrin.

The dhampir was shivering in my arm, pressed against my side. She was very cold, though I wasn’t sure if that was her injury or her natural state. The arrow in her shoulder was black and fletched with pale green feathers. A subtle silver-hued light radiated from the wound, as though the dart had been a burning comet fallen from the stars.

“I feel sick,” she said. She looked very pale, almost so much as when she’d briefly taken her true form in my room the night before.

I clenched my jaw. The elves had hit her with azsilver. Banemetal, as humans called it. An alloy that harmed the soul along with the flesh, and was especially effective against the undead. Had Catrin been a true vampire, it would have scorched her spirit from her body and sent it hurtling into the Wend to burn for an age.

“Hold on,” I told her. “I’ll get us out of this.” I wanted to rip the arrow out, but didn’t dare take my other hand off my weapon. Had she been human, I’d have left it in to avoid blood loss, but the magic dart was doing harm for every second it was embedded in her.

“Knew you were some kind o’ lord,” Catrin said with a weak smile. There was blood on her teeth, and the whites of her eyes had darkened to red. She shivered violently, as though from deadly fever. Her accent had thickened — definitely a Marchlander. “Just my luck.”

I tore my attention from the dhampir and fixed it on the darkening woods. “I was sent by the Lady Eanor of the Choir Concilium to execute Orson Falconer. We are on the same side, my word of honor on it.”

“...Honor?”

The wisps ceased their laughter. The forest went deadly silent. The chill in my blood became a winter wind, ice crackling through my veins.

The immortal voice in the darkness spoke, and each word was a brand, each sentence a pronouncement of doom.

“You think to claim honor now? You, who wields the Faen Orgis?”

“You, who let the greatest of our havens burn?”

“You, whose order betrayed our archon?”

“You, who allowed the Enemy into the very heart of our most sacred places?”

“Even now you bear its mark upon your flesh.”

The scars on my face burned. I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t muster a word. What could I say?

It was all true.

“I was deceived,” I croaked. “I didn’t know—”

“You should not have come here,” the elf said. “You will not leave alive.”

Movement in the surrounding trees. More Wil-O’ Wisps, and only then did the true Sidhe make their appearance.

They were all tall as lords, all graceful, and an unearthly light clung to them. They were so beautiful it hurt the eyes, their weapons and armor shining with witchlight. Their faces were stern, wolfish, and utterly without mercy. They had the strength of ages, and a hatred born of the death of their civilization.

A death I’d helped bring about.

They gathered close, aiming shining spears at my neck.

“We will bring you to our lord for judgment.”