Arc 2: Chapter 21: Thorned Wisdom

Arc 2: Chapter 21: Thorned Wisdom

I paid the castle smith to fix my armor. She had to use ordinary steel, which looked odd with the shadowy elf-iron links. The smith, a gnarled old woman with ashy gray hair and arms near thick as mine, kept grumbling about how sacrilegious it was to do such patchwork repairs to Sidhe work. Finally, after some cajoling, she ended up using an engraved iron plate as the centerpiece of the repair, mostly covering the mismatched metal, making it look like a deliberate touch.

I liked it. It made the hauberk look less uniformly black, adding a small flare. I hadn’t gone for aesthetic in my gear since I’d been in the peerage, and part of me had missed those indulgences.

I paid her well, thanked her, and quietly hoped whatever penance she assigned herself wouldn’t be too harsh. That done, I made my way to the stables to meet Emma, passing through an inner courtyard of the keep. True to their aesthetic, House Hunting had turned it into a small wood, shadowing the interior with trees. I imagined an invading force would find the effect uncanny, and find many sharp spears waiting for them in the shadows.

A figure lurking beneath one of those trees stopped me. “Master Alken. Out late, are we?”

I paused, instinctively reaching for the dagger beneath my cloak. I didn’t draw it, only assured myself I could. “Ser Lydia,” I greeted the Hunting bannerwoman who stepped out of the shade. I hadn’t noticed her, which unnerved me.

She still wore her brassy armor, with a breastplate reinforced with scale and a leather coat more reminiscent of a woodsman’s than a soldier’s. She no longer wore a helm, however, giving me my first good look at her face. She approached middle age, with a narrow face and thin lips, pale brown eyes bright in the dim light. A blistering mark covered the lower portion of one cheek, pulling at the corner of her mouth. It would probably remain as a nasty scar, a reminder of Jon Orley’s wrath.

“If you intend to depart without being noticed,” the knight said, her tone politely neutral, “you should know that most of this fiefdom’s soldiery have very good night vision. Old blessings from the fae-folk who lived in this land in past times.”

She tapped a gloved finger under one wolfish eye.

I let out a small laugh, more a sound of tension breaking than humor. “Right. Should have guessed. That Gors fellow looked like he had some erkish blood in him. You even have a town called Orcswell.”

Lyda sneered at the name. “I’m half certain Gors himself is a changeling — some parents keep them, rather than leaving them in the wilds as they should. But I digress. You are leaving us?”

The way she said it made me guess she’d assumed I planned to abandon them. “I’m not fleeing,” I said, too hastily. Lydia only lifted a dark brown eyebrow.

Taking a breath and choosing my words more carefully I added, “I can’t do any of you any good here. I’m chasing down a lead, and hopefully it will give me a way to rid you all of Orley, so you can get back to your lives.”

Lydia nodded slowly, though she still had some doubt on her face. “Back at Orcswell... you saved us. Many of the others still think Lady Emma is responsible for this, perhaps even in control of the Burnt Rider somehow, but I have eyes.” She dipped into a martial bow of respect. “You fought well, Ser. Whatever you are going to do, good luck to you.”

I admit, it took me off guard. I’d gotten so used to distrust and disdain, or to manipulation masked as admiration. For a moment, I didn’t know what to say.

Ser Lydia, for her part, didn’t give the moment time to become awkward. After a precisely timed pause she turned on her heel, off to attend some duty.

I stopped her when she’d gone three steps away. “Wait.”

The knight turned, again lifting a quizzical eyebrow.

“There’s a young girl in the keep, a laundry maid. Would be about fifteen, I think. She’s one of Lady Emma’s servants, her housekeeper’s daughter. I think she’s been cast adrift in this crisis — could you check in on her, see if she’s alright?”

I knew that checking in on maids wasn’t the purview of knights, but Lydia seemed a good sort, opinions on changeling children notwithstanding.

To my relief she nodded amicably. “Of course. I’ll see to it. Any message you’d like to give the child?”

I thought about it a moment. “Tell her this will all be done with soon, and then she’ll be back with her ma’. It’s a promise, straight from the Lady Carreon herself.”

The knight snorted. “Right. Well, I can’t make it a priority. One more thing — you should exit by the southeast wall. There’s a hedge beneath it we haven’t tended to, and I’m in charge of it tonight.” She inclined her head again, then left.

I stood there a moment, taking time to process. When had I last been given any honor by one of the peerage? Why did I still care? Even still, it made me feel a bit less tense. I scoffed at myself, then went to find my young charge.

***

We went without chimera, secreting ourselves out of the castle in the night. Antlerhall had been placed on high alert with the ongoing crisis, but a touch of Cant and a few aura-laced words saw us through, along with Ser Lydia’s advice. The guards were on the lookout for devils and monsters out of the night, not us.

No, I happened to be the idiot going out hunting for what lurked in the dark beyond those torchlit walls.

Two hours after our departure, deep into the night, I brought us into a woodland glade south of the keep. More snow had fallen, casting everything into silver shades beneath the rising moons. Ghost-lights guided our path, and spirits murmured drunkenly in the shadows, but none approached us. They must have sensed my intent, my destination, and wanted no part of it.

Warlock and child of occultists she might be, but Emma had been raised in a sheltered lifestyle. Beneath the pointed cowl of her black cloak, a night-veil like mine fashioned to ward off od from the waxing moons, she watched the woods with nervous eyes.

“Where are we going?” She whispered, working to keep pace with my longer strides. “This isn’t the way to Orcswell.”

“Small detour,” I said.

She huffed in frustration, but cold and nervousness stalled her questions. Our breath formed nearly glowing plumes in the gloom, misting breath catching what light came down through the canopy.

I found what I sought soon enough. Following subtle sensations pulling at my aura, a gut feeling, and the winking Wil-O’ Wisps, I led us into a deep, old part of the woods beyond Antlerhall. The trees grew taller here, the shadows deeper. Strange sounds danced through the night, and eerie eyes seemed to occasionally blink through the trees, green and set in strange configurations.

Emma noticed the change, though her own magic didn’t give her the same acute senses as mine — hers was all human, or perhaps animal, instinct, the knowledge that she’d passed into a dangerous place. “Where are we?” She asked, casting anxious eyes into the night.

“The Wend,” I said.

She blinked. “You can’t be serious. How... Why—”

“It’s just a Burrow,” I said. “Don’t panic. And don’t look at them. They can ensorcel you.”

She’d been staring at the alien eyes in the darkness. Swallowing, she blinked and tore her gaze away. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves she said, in a way that had the edge of a noble’s command in it, “and why, pray tell, are we in a Burrow of the Wend?”

A sound pierced the night. Something halfway between an avian screech and a human shout. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and Emma let out a yelp. My fingers flexed, but I had no enchanted axe to grap — it still formed the core of the Malison Tree that bound Jon Orley.

“Because I need to talk to your godmother,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure she’s been keeping an eye on things, which means she’d want a nice, gloomy refuge somewhere nearby.”

Emma’s eyes widened at this, and she fixed her gaze forward. “We’re going to see Lady Nath? But, she’s always found me in the past. I...”

“We’ll be alright,” I said, trying to be reassuring. “Just stick close.”

“It’s you,” the priest said. He’d lost his shoes in the woods, and his feet were raw and blistered. His hands and face had been lacerated, as though the forest had tried to maul him on his way here. Perhaps it had — we were in the Wend, after all.

Nath glanced at the priest, looking bemused. “Interesting. I expected him to die in the forest.”

I remembered another detail about the man then, even if I still couldn’t place his name. “He saw you and Emma together,” I said. I turned on the Onsolain, clenching my jaw in sudden anger. “Did you lure him out here to silence him?”

“No,” Nath said, her expression mildly bemused as she watched the man stumble drunkenly toward us through the field of violet flowers. “He has been trying to find me for many weeks. He is in love with me, I think.” She tittered, pressing the back of one hand to her lips. “It’s not the first time. Oh, but a priest? That is a fresh amusement.”

I sighed and began to step toward the poor fool. I’d have to guide him back through the wilderness. I didn’t have time, damn it all, but I couldn’t just leave him out here to get eaten by wyldefae, or worse.

“Wait,” Nath said. She held out a hand, and I stopped — though she spoke softly, something in her voice told me it would be a very bad idea to ignore her.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, knowing I probably wouldn't like the answer. I knew Nath’s reputation.

“I do not know,” Nath mused. She seemed surprised at the admission. “A man of faith, guided to darkness? It is hardly a first, but still I wonder... will he balk when he sees just how twisted the briar behind this rose is, how sharp its thorns, or will it allure him all the more? I am curious.”

The man jabbered, half-incoherent. I grimaced at the sight. “This isn’t love. He’s just ensorcelled. You know you can have that effect on mortals.”

Nath shrugged one silvered shoulder. “And what does that matter? Do you think it matters to him?”

“It might,” I insisted. “If he had half a brain to think it over just now.”

“I have not enchanted him,” Nath said, turning her empty eyes back to me. “Not with any deliberate exertion of my power, in any case. I am surprised by you, Hewer. Were you not so enchanted yourself, once? Do you begrudge others such joy, now it has been lost to you?”

I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my temper in check. “That is not... Damn it, you don’t feel anything for him! He’s just some poor bastard you see as a toy, or a tool.” I could well imagine what kind of purposes the Angel of the Briar would put a corrupted preacher to.

“Yes.” Nath didn’t have so much as a trace of shame on her immortally beautiful face. “And you see yourself in him, and it angers you.”

The blood went out of me then. I knew she could see my face drain of color, the cold rage on my face. It didn’t impress her. Nath only lifted her chin, unmoved by how deep those words had cut.

“The world is hard and cruel, O’ Fallen Knight. You may resent those of us who choose to indulge in dreams, but it is not your place to take them. Keep your waking nightmare until it breaks you, I care not.” She flicked two fingers to one side, causing a ripple of shadow to pass where her touch scarred the air. “That man has had a long, difficult life, and he will spend his final days lonely and frustrated. I can show him wonders, and horrors... which do you think he will prefer?”

“You expect me to believe you’re doing this for his sake?” I sneered.

“I care not a wit what you believe.” Nath shook her head. “Will you challenge me for this soul, Headsman? Now, when you need my good will and my aid?”

I glanced at the man. He’d stopped halfway across the field, his knees giving way to exhaustion. He knelt there in the flowers, dazing in dreamy wonder at the shadow-maned angel who’d probably haunted his every dream and waking moment since he first laid eyes on her. It made me sick, to think there were beings in the cosmos who could take our will away so easily. Had I really been like that, once?

If I had, I’d woken up. Perhaps it was best to let the priest find his own way out of the murk. Besides, Nath had a point. I had other problems, and I’m no hero besides.

“Orley... how do I send him back to Hell? How do I stop him?” I dismissed the besotted fool from my attention.

“It depends on which Hell you speak of,” Nath said, returning her attention to the previous matter as well. “There are many. If you wish to confine him once again to the Iron Pits, then that will be difficult — he is here lawfully, under the sanction of rites old as this world. The easiest method is to allow him to complete his work.”

I hardened my voice. “I will not let him take the girl.”

“Then there is only one way,” Nath said. “You and he are both acting for different Realms Immortal. Your authority is as paramount as his.”

She spread her hands out, falling silent. Imploring me to understand.

I did. “I can challenge him. One Doomsman to another.”

Nath’s smile held something of the fey humor of the Sidhe in it. “That, O’ Headsman, is true. Understand that to do so will tie Emma Carreon’s fate to yours, which may not be a kindness. I need not mention it may also cause discontent between the Choir Concilium and the Iron Tribunal, two mighty realms of the Divinity.”

“If I don’t,” I said cautiously, “will Emma end up being consigned to Hell?”

“Without a doubt,” Nath said, very serious.

I didn’t trust her. Whatever else, she could lie, or at least use misleading truths. There had also been Orley’s words when we’d fought him. I am not here for you.

What had that meant? And did it matter? Whatever else, he was a curse that would hound Emma for the rest of her days unless I did something. And...

And I cared, I realized. Somewhere along the way, this had stopped being a job. As I’d learned more about Emma’s past, about her situation and struggles, I’d grown invested in freeing her of it all. Perhaps I just didn’t want to see one more monster born into the world, one I might one day have to face again in my official capacity as Headsman.

I wanted no future where I’d have to execute that troubled young woman. She hadn’t earned any of her woes.

“I’ll do it then,” I said.

Nath leaned forward, so her empty eyes seemed to become enormous. “This is a decision which may affect the rest of your life, Alken Hewer. Are you certain?”

I set my jaw and stood to my fullest height, though it didn’t come close to matching the Fallen’s. “I’ve made worse choices. I might regret this one, but that doesn’t make it wrong.”

Nath tilted her chin, inspecting me with a critical sidelong gaze. “Then so mote it be. If you are to do this thing, you will need a voice within the Choir itself to represent you — the Iron Lords respect law and tradition, but they will ignore anything not backed by a force to match theirs.”

Knowing she most certainly did, I asked the obvious question. “You have any suggestions? I’m not exactly on close speaking terms with any of the Onsolain.”

“Oh, I can think of one who’d absolutely leap at the chance to aid in such a noble endeavor.” Nath’s words and twisted lips had a truly poisonous humor in them. “Oh, what a sweet irony! But the night ages. Make your preparations, Headsman. Soon enough, you will have to make your case on behalf of Emma Carreon’s soul, and all the powers of Heaven and Hell shall hear it.”

I turned to leave without a word, though my eyes strayed to the priest. Nath strode toward him, and I saw the effect it had on the man. The sight made my gut twist. I wondered how many of the Brothers of the Briar had started out just like him.