View Full Version : The Price of Peace
The carriage stopped and the right door swung open toward the back, relinquishing Marcus Book. His boots left slight impressions in the gummy mud, though the last rain had been a week ago and sparse. It was spring, but this place didn’t seem to know it. The air had an annoying breed of chill to it, the sort of chill that causes a shiver even in those accustomed to snowy climes, and the sky was overcast with steely clouds even in the late morning.
Still, Marcus relished the opportunity to stretch his legs, so when he walked away from the carriage he did so slowly. The road cut through a sparingly populated forest, and the trees were thin and naked and ensconced in fog. Everything seemed to be blanketed in a thin grey twilight and so naturally dim that Marcus could not imagine the place on a sunny day. Imagining it at night added an extra beat to his heart, and he unconsciously shifted the sword strapped to his back – just to be sure it was there and ready if needed. This didn’t feel like enemy territory, but it looked like it.
The young squire crouched a few yards ahead of the carriage and brushed a handful of soggy, long-dead leaves aside, and then he lifted the fallen road sign that had been buried beneath. It was a crude wooden device: the points of rusty nails protruded from the back of the post, and a single word was carved by an amateur hand in the sign proper.
Farshire, it read.
Marcus Book sighed and dropped the sign back into its leafy bed, raising his eyes to the road ahead. There wasn’t much to see: it curved to the right and out of sight perhaps fifty yards on. He twisted to the left without rising from his crouch to peer over his shoulder at the carriage. The horses stood with legs wide-braced, their heads hanging. There would be no turning back now, no matter how strongly Marcus felt that this would not be a good place to die.
He returned to the carriage, tensing his legs with every step in an effort to work the tightness out of them before he lifted himself back inside. “We’ve arrived,” he said to the other passengers as he closed the door.
The carriage entered the town of Farshire from the west along the appropriately named West Way. Farshire was situated in the center of a well-sized county which was also called Farshire, and had sprung up at the crossroads where the West Way met the North Way. The people of Farshire (the county, that is) were not, as one might imagine, very creative.
When the knights of The Brotherhood stepped out of their carriage one after another to behold a bustling, well-maintained, economically impressive community, they were understandably astonished. Their carriage was parked in front of the Farshire Inn, which was a broad two-story building constructed in the most modern style. Its roof was sloped and rusty orange-red, with leering gargoyles strategically positioned beneath the eaves. The nearest structure of its type and quality was easily hundreds of miles away, if not as far as Knife’s Edge.
And the inn was by no means out of place. The cobblestones of the street were cut with painstaking uniformity from the finest stone, and assumingly imported from quarries far to the south. A different, finer stone was used to pave upraised sidewalks, and they flanked all of the town’s interior streets.
The people were lively and attractive and wore the latest styles mostly from Corone as opposed to Knife’s Edge, and not one of them was so downtrodden that he or she could not at least manage a nod of acknowledgement in passing. Goods were not hawked in the streets as a general rule, but the basics could be acquired from at least one and usually two fine establishments, if not delivered – delivery carts of many sorts roamed the town at all hours of the day. The cart traffic gave the town the air of a densely populated city, but the illusion was only partially fallacious: Farshire had a much larger citizenship than was usual so far from proper civilization.
“Sir,” a boy said to Marcus Book. “Shall I take your horses in?”
“Who are you?” he said.
“Sir? I’m the inn’s stable boy, of course.”
“The inn has a stable boy?”
The stable boy looked a bit confused, and perhaps amused, as if maybe someone was playing a joke on him he didn’t quite understand yet. “Yes of course, sir,” he said. “What sort of inn doesn’t have a stable boy?”
The Brotherhood’s representatives in Farshire were three. One was a scribe made an expert in the sociopolitical situation in this part of Salvar, who was also well-versed in the flora and fauna of the area. His name was Alexander Farkus. He was middle-aged and unassuming, with a thin frame. His hair was long and slightly unkempt, and he was sporting the beginnings of a beard as a result of a few weeks on the road. Nothing in his bearing suggested that he was a scholarly man, but when engaged on academic matters his social reservations were short-lived.
The second was a knight proper, and a Vindicator to be precise. Her name was Anya Shea, but when she was called Anya Pureheart there was no confusion among those that knew her. She was taller than a woman’s wont and her limbs were shaped a little harder than is normal for her gender, and though her hair was a lovely chestnut color she kept it shaved close to her scalp as all knights of The Brotherhood do. However, her face and her voice were as womanly as faces and voices can come, all full lips and high cheekbones and wide eyes and lilting tones. She was innocent but wise by reputation, and she was idealistic but knowledge and cold resolve was in her steely grey eyes.
The third and last of the knights was Anya’s squire, though they didn’t seem too far apart in age. His name was Marcus Book, and like Anya his hair was a little more than a five o’clock shadow of the scalp. Unlike Anya, he was swarthy and dark-eyed, masculine and intense. Though Anya was the more experienced and powerful by a wide margin, Marcus better looked the part of a battle-hardened warrior. He was built of big, hard-forged thews and heavy-browed ire. Anya was the taller of the two, but Marcus was undeniably larger: it was easier to imagine him her bodyguard than her student.
The man making these observations was Olav Krodt, the chief magistrate of Farshire. Olav – he insisted everyone call him Olav – met the trio in the foyer of the town inn, shaking their hands and thanking them profusely for coming. He insisted that they settle themselves in comfortably and eat before any business was discussed, and the knights were not inclined to disagree with him.
***
Marcus was, by nature, a cautious individual. He reserved his judgments and rarely let them solidify entirely. He wouldn’t gauge a man’s worth until the man was dead, nor the weather until it was a week past, or a meal until he could unequivocally say it wasn’t poison. He was, however, having a hard time remaining cautious in Farshire. A serving of extra-tender pork after weeks on the road went a long way in improving one’s place in the squire’s estimation.
“You mentioned that Farshire was well-off, Farkus, but I wasn’t really prepared for this,” Marcus said.
Farkus swallowed a mouthful of wine – he was the only one who partook of alcohol – and nodded. “Honestly, our records didn’t give the full account. The town’s wealth was noted, don’t get me wrong, but I expected maybe something a little above average: a little more than a hole in the ground, as opposed to a little less than.”
“It seems so…out of place,” Marcus mused. “A little south and west they’re barely out of winter, but summer seems to be in full swing once you hit the outskirts of town. And the streets are wider here than Main Street in Knife’s Edge and the upkeep seems better.”
“Well, Farshire is slightly elevated above the forest, which would account for the lack of fog and the heat,” Farkus said. “And having fewer streets makes upkeep easier, and cheaper, even if there’s more stone involved.”
“Warmth goes a long way,” Marcus agreed. “Even despite their troubles, I don’t see a lot of fear here.”
Anya nodded, and joined the conversation. “You noticed it too, then?”
“The smell? The itching behind my eyes?” Marcus said, half-grinning.
“What about your heart?”
“It’s been fluttering since before we left the forest,” Marcus said.
“There are demons here?” Farkus asked, suddenly a little less relaxed.
Marcus and Anya each nodded only slightly, as if neither were quite sure.
“It’s…distant,” Anya said. “In the true presence of the infernal, the effect is truly visceral. What I’m experiencing is like aftershocks. I mistook it for nausea at first, but now it’s unmistakable. Whatever is hounding these people is demonic in nature, and must be powerful to leave such an impression.”
Marcus leaned forward. “My experience with The Sense is very basic. Is that what this is? The beast came and what we’re feeling is the stink it left in its wake?”
Anya shrugged and said, “It’s possible, but hard to say. I’ve never felt anything quite like this before, either. It’s uncommon, which suggests we’re up against something particularly nasty.”
“Fantastic,” Farkus said, poking disinterestedly at the remains of his food and generally looking a bit less cheery.
The coterie met Olav Krodt perhaps an hour later in a common room of the inn, which was empty but for the magistrate and his guests. If Olav had an entourage, they were told to wait elsewhere, and the inn’s staff only intruded once to offer refreshments. The meeting was over candlelight in the center of a room full of otherwise empty tables, and might have had the air of conspiracy if not for Olav’s relative calm. His manner was polite and friendly in the gentlest way, and he seemed incapable of going without a sincere smile even when speaking of sad things.
There were many sad things to discuss that night.
“As I’m sure you’ve heard, it comes at night only,” the magistrate was saying. “At first we thought it was an animal. That seems like a common mistake in these cases. I guess you would know better than me.”
“Why did you think it was an animal, Magistrate Krodt? And what changed your opinion?” Anya said.
“Please, Olav,” the magistrate insisted, clasping his hands in front of him and over the table. “My title is nothing. My family name is nothing. You are hunters of these things, healers, heroes, and I refuse to accept modesty from you. Now, to answer your question.”
Olav paused, and for a long moment did not smile. Then he said, “A month ago we found Vlad Manderley dead four or five miles to the southeast. It was the crows that led us to him. What was left of him, I guess. We figure it was him because no one saw him since the night before, when he was supposed to be returning from the Sladansk farm.
“In any case, he was just the first. Vlad’s son was dead a week and a half later, in a similar manner, but Danton was killed at home. He only lived three streets down from where we sit now. There have been seven deaths in total. Just after I sent my plea to your Brotherhood, an entire family was butchered. The children weren’t spared. These were brutal murders.”
“What made you think that this is more than random savagery, Olav?” Anya said. Her voice was cool, professional, but there was sympathy in her eyes.
“Well, like I said before, at first we thought it was random. Maybe a bear. But a bear cannot wander into town and commit grisly murder and then leave again without someone seeing it. Or without leaving evidence of its coming and going. Danton, the son of the first victim? His door was locked. No broken windows, no unhinged cellar door. How the murderer came and went, we don’t know.
“Even ignoring those questions, these murders were premeditated. All of the victims were somehow involved with important families to Farshire. Vlad’s great grandfather was the first magistrate. The fourth victim sits…well, sat on the yearly council. Oleg Novo – it was his family that was killed – he was the predecessor of my advisor. You see? All of the victims were public figures, or closely related to public figures.”
“All of these attacks happened at night?” Farkus said, without looking up from the notes he’d been furiously scribbling.
“Yes,” Olav said. “All at night, with no witnesses.”
Farkus nodded, without writing anything, and then said, “And you said the wounds were similar to those of an animal attack? Perhaps a bear?”
Olav’s eyes took a distant look as he nodded. “Whatever it was, it was very strong and used very long teeth to bite. The victims were all handled roughly before their murders, and after. You can see why I called you, I assume? The evidence points to a murderer with a man’s intelligence and capacity for hate, but an animal’s ferocity and strength.”
“A demon,” Farkus agreed.
“Yes, and our impressions confirm it,” Anya said, nodding to her squire. “It is within our power to sense the infernal. Is it possible that the demon hides here during the day, Olav?”
“No,” the magistrate said quickly. “There is no indication that there’s any demonic activity here during the day. We believe the monster nests elsewhere, outside the city, and sneaks in under cover of night.”
Anya paused to consider a different line of questioning in light of Olav’s sudden agitation. She was not surprised that he found it disturbing to imagine that a murderer of public officials might be hiding so close to home.
“Our scribe noticed that your church goes unused,” she said eventually. “Am I to assume you called us because the Church of the Ethereal Sway has a reduced presence here?”
Olav nodded. “Our people lost interest in The Sway a long time ago, and we are a little too far from Knife’s Edge for the Church to bother us very much.”
Farkus raised his eyebrows and looked up from his writing. “The church’s disuse isn’t because of the civil war, then?”
“Oh, no,” Olav said. “As I said, the priests always had a hard time getting any of us into that old church. I’m constantly surprised they convinced us to build it at all, especially without support from Knife’s Edge. The Church gave up on Farshire fifteen years before the civil war even started. Had there been no war, I doubt the Church would send anyone to help us here. But there was a war, so I didn’t bother to send for help from there. We heard rumors of your Brotherhood, and so we came straight to you.”
The knights glanced to one another but didn’t need to share words. They’d never heard of The Church of the Ethereal Sway ignoring a populous town before, no matter how out-of-the-way, and especially not a wealthy one. Farshire grew stranger to them by the minute.
“Well,” Anya said. “You were right to come to us, Magistrate. I’m sorry…Olav. We’ll start investigating these murders immediately. Tomorrow I would like Farkus to begin exploring the places where the bodies were found, with your permission of course. Marcus, my apprentice, will accompany him.”
“And where will you go, if you don’t mind me asking,” Olav said with interest.
“I will ride out to Sladansk farm,” she said. “I believe you said that’s where the first victim was coming from. I would like to trace his footsteps.”
“Oh,” Olav said, and cleared his throat. “Miss Shea, I don’t know if it would be wise for you to leave the town alone, especially not as far as Sladansk.”
“Don’t worry about me, Olav,” Anya said with a smile. “I am well-versed in demon kind, and I have no fear of them on the road. It is they who fear me.”
Olav went wide-eyed and held out his hands, and said, “No, no, you misunderstand me. I have no doubts about your skills, and I’m not afraid of how you’ll fare against the murderer, even alone. I’m concerned because the villages and settlements around our town are barely civilized. The people of the countryside are poor and bitter, and sometimes steal from or even attack strangers, even if they come from Farshire. I am concerned that they will not show you the proper respect, being a stranger and, I mean no offense, a lady.”
Anya nodded thoughtfully, but did not seem likely to budge.
“Perhaps you should at least take your squire,” Olav offered. “If you fear for Mr. Farkus’ safety, I will appoint some men from our militia to accompany him, and I assure you no harm will befall him in the town.”
Marcus glanced up for the first time, looking from Olav’s face to Anya’s. “I think he’s right,” the squire said. “Farkus is a big boy, and he’ll be just as safe with three good militiamen following him around as he would if I were here. I’ll be more useful with you.”
Anya stared at Marcus for a few seconds, and then sighed inaudibly. “Very well,” she said. “We leave in the morning.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair, and could not contain a contented smile.
Marcus regretted everything.
“I regret everything,” he said.
“Hush,” Anya said without conviction.
The grassy fields of Farshire County stretched immeasurably in every direction, and were flanked by distant mountains in the southeast, and similar mountains farther to the northeast. There was a high blanket of fog, which rendered those mountains little more than deep grey shadows, and the vast forestland to the east was an ominous blackness low on the horizon. The town of Farshire was to the south, but they had long since lost sight of it.
It seemed that the moment they did escape the town, the land became inhospitable again. The fog returned, and the unyielding grey twilight with it. The grasses were green and tipped with yellow flowers, but these colors were half-hearted at best. The paladins followed a wooden fence, which they were told would lead them to Sladansk farm, and even the fence seemed depressed. Marcus guided his horse closer to the fence, close enough that he could slide a bit to the right and kick it ineffectually. The horse sauntered away from the fence again, surprised by the act, and Anya rolled her eyes at her companion.
“The kill is only a small part of the hunt, Marcus,” Anya said after a time.
“I know,” he said. He almost mentioned that it was his favorite part, but he held his tongue. “I don’t know why I’m so impatient with this one. The weather doesn’t usually bother me this much, especially not in Salvar. I like the cold.”
Anya shook her head. “It’s not just you. I find it difficult to keep my spirits here as well, it’s just too quiet. Even the flowers and the birds seem to be moping. I think this is the gate here.”
Marcus grunted his agreement as they came upon a simple clasped gate in the fence. He slid off his saddle and stretched the day’s ride out of his legs as he approached and undid the clasp. The gate opened up into more grassland, but a muddy road had been cut through the green, and Anya guided the horses through the gate and onto the road. Marcus rejoined her after closing the gate again, and they continued on their way in silence.
It seemed the road’s beginnings were ambitious, and it soon devolved into a choked path, and it was hardly that when the paladins at last arrived. Sladansk farm occupied a large bowl in the fields, which prevented it from being spotted from a distance but allowed the paladins a good vantage point to examine it now.
The farm had clearly seen better days. Three of its four fields went unused and the fourth seemed to be suffering a mild blight. A sad handful of cows grazed near the house, which was a small and simple affair and could not have more than three rooms. Thin smoke wafted lazily from the chimney, but there were no other signs of life or civilization.
The barn was large and even a layperson could guess that it had been robust and impressive in its day, but now its boards were rotted and a full quarter of its roof was collapsed. Next to the barn was a poorly contained haylage heap, but the cattle ignored it entirely.
“What a lovely place,” Anya muttered, which clearly surprised even herself. The look on her face made Marcus snicker despite himself, and Anya could not keep herself from laughing either.
And so the paladins rode down to Sladansk farm laughing, because it was better than giving into the overwhelming despair which haunted that place.
It was Anya’s idea to leave the horses a distance from the farm. She was worried that they might try to eat something, which Marcus agreed would be detrimental to their health. Though the cows seemed to know well enough what to eat and what not to, they were native to the region and privy to experiences the horses did not have.
The farmhouse was in a sadder state than had been apparent from the hill. The chimney was perilously close to collapse, leaning drunkenly away from the house and already missing a number of crumbled bricks all along its outside length. Things had been better once: most of the windows had glass, though nothing could be seen through them due to the thick layer of grime and dust accumulated on both sides. The lands were silent, save for the very soft rustling of the cows as they picked piteously at the ground.
“Ho!” Anya called from a few feet away from the door, but there was no answer. The paladins slowed their walk and listened, examining the house and then the field for any sign of movement or life.
It was only after a long pause that the senior knight gently rapped her knuckles against the door. When there was still no answer, she pounded the base of her fist on the wood to no avail. “Is it abandoned?” Marcus wondered.
“Perhaps,” Anya said. “Perhaps worse. Watch the field, I’m going inside.”
Marcus grunted, watching as Anya drew her short sword and tried the doorknob. It turned, and she nodded at him before pushing the door open. It was dark inside, and the sad light from outdoors did little to dispel the black. It was of little consequence to Anya, of course: her eyes took on a subtle golden glow, and she entered cautiously.
Meanwhile, Marcus walked along the front of the house away from the door, glancing constantly out toward the field and the surrounding highland. He neared the corner of the house, and grunted as the prongs of a pitchfork were suddenly thrust out at him from around the edge. He snatched the tool, grabbing it from the shaft just below the fork. He yanked, and tossed the pitchfork out away from the house, but before he could advance on his attacker something collided with him from the side.
It was intended to be a tackle, but the aggressor was small and Marcus had at least a hundred pounds on him. Instead of falling to the ground, the paladin’s back was pressed against the house, and he growled. It was a peasant, younger even than Marcus, and he struggled vainly to shift the heavier knight. His arms were wrapped around Book’s waist, his shoulder pushed against his abdomen, and he kicked desperately at the dirt. It was annoying.
The first attacker came around the side of the house. He was a peasant too, taller and older but no more substantial. He glanced at his discarded pitchfork, then thought better of it and drew a short, rusted knife from his pocket. The peasant held the knife underhanded and lifted it high, then charged. Marcus grabbed the second peasant’s wrists with one hand in mid-strike, and forced the knife down into the first peasant’s back. The boy screamed and loosened his grip on the knight’s waist, which allowed Marcus to simply shove him away and to the ground.
The second peasant tried to run, then, but Marcus caught him by the back of his shirt and pulled hard, forcing the peasant against the house with enough force to daze. Then the paladin put his fist in the peasant’s stomach, and then lifted him bodily and shoved him through the mucky glass of a nearby window.
Marcus surveyed the field. The boy, who Marcus now saw was at least in his mid-teens, was still on the ground whimpering and pawing hopelessly at the knife. The second attacker did not emerge from the house. This was good, as two new attackers were emerging from the field and charging, and a third from the dilapidated barn, each carrying basic but potentially deadly tools.
The first to arrive was the man who had come from the barn, armed with a hand-scythe. He hesitated to swing, however, and it was a simple matter for Marcus to catch his wrist and then shove his palm into the peasant’s face, breaking the nose and bringing the attacker to the ground beside the injured boy. Before the other two were close enough to initiate their own attack, Marcus lifted the latest peasant from the ground and wrapped one thick arm around the man’s neck.
Marcus wrapped his free arm around the peasant’s middle and pressed his palm to the man’s chest, and allowed the Light to surge through him. Instantly the peasant began to scream in true agony, and the blood rushed from his shattered nose as if from a river. He kicked and struggled desperately but feebly as thin golden flames began to lick the air from his arms and legs, and silver smoke issued from his mouth with every tormented shout. He was being incinerated alive, and it was obvious that the flames tortured him but would never consume him – at least not physically.
The men from the field stopped their approach and dropped their weapons, and it was all they could do but watch, horrified. “Inside,” Marcus roared at them. “And drag the boy in with you or you’ll all burn.”
The inhabitants of Sladansk farm were assembled in the common room of the farmhouse. There were nine of them: seven males and two females. Marcus had been the one to meet most of the men, but the eldest two and the women, an old farmwife and her young daughter, had been inside with Anya. A heavy, crudely carved table was between them and the paladins.
Anya had just finished healing the stab wound from the young farm boy’s back, a process her squire had watched with keen interest. He had heard of the ability to truly heal with the power of the Light, but had never witnessed it firsthand. It took an incredible amount of control to build with the Light’s power, rather than destroy, and Marcus was impressed with his mentor.
“It is time for answers,” Anya said in Salvic. Marcus’ native language was Salvic and he found her accent strange, a hard language in a soft mouth. The farm-people stared at her defiantly.
“Why did you attack us?” she demanded.
Still they stared. When Anya repeated her question the eldest man spat across the table, which would have struck her in the face if she did not intercept the spittle in midair with a steel-clad palm.
Marcus’ mouth twisted. He came around the table and approached one man in particular, who sat curled upon himself and shivering, clutching his recently-restored nose. When the young squire reached one hand out toward that man, he screamed and recoiled, and the words flowed out of him in a quick jumble.
“You are from Farshire,” he blubbered, “you come to take from us again; father said never again, father said we’d all die first!”
Marcus lowered his hand, but kept his eyes cruel and intense. The peasants glanced between the man and Marcus, and were obviously affected by the power the paladin had over their fellow.
“Torture us if you want,” the eldest man said, sneering through his beard. “We are ready to die. You have taken everything from us; we don’t have a reason to live.”
The woman clutched the young girl to her chest, and the significance of the gesture was not lost on Anya. “You have suffered,” Anya said, “but not all of your family is ready to die. I have seen men who have accepted death, and they are not as defiant as you are. We came from Farshire, yes, but we are not citizens there. We are travelers, here to hunt demons. The only thing we have taken from you is your health, which has been given back.”
“You’re a liar!” one of the boys blurted venomously. Marcus turned cruel eyes on the speaker, and though the boy kept his chin up it was obvious that he did so only by struggling with intense fear.
“I tell the truth,” Anya insisted gently. “If you answer our questions, we will leave you peacefully and do no more harm.”
“Ask then, and get out,” the eldest farmer said.
“As I said, we’re investigating a series of murders in this region. We were told one of the victims was here. His name was Vladimir Manderley. Did you know this man?” Anya said.
A palpable gloom passed over the farming family. As one their eyes dropped and their shoulders slumped, but there was also deep hatred roiling off of them. “We know Manderley,” one of the boys said at last.
“Did you kill him?” Marcus asked.
“No,” the elder sighed, “I wish we had.”
“Why?” Anya said.
“That is a question for your masters in Farshire,” the elder farmer said with a grimace. “I will tell you that Vlad took something precious from us, which we will never see again. It was the last precious thing in a long line of precious things that go into Farshire and never come back.”
Anya sighed. “If you did not kill Vladimir Manderley, who or what did?”
“Not us,” the elder farmer said, “and the killer isn’t here. I pray it never will be.”
“Do you know where the killer is? What it is?” Anya asked.
“I know that it is evil,” the farmer answered. “I know it was once human, but loses more of its humanity every night, and soon it won’t remember what it was before. It remembers enough to kill the right people now, but soon it will forget and then I hope it is far away from here. Where is it? Hopefully it is not far from Farshire, where it belongs.”
“You’re not telling us what we need to know,” Marcus said, and there was a threat in his voice.
The elder farmer sneered and turned his face away, and then sighed. “If all you care about is the demon, ask your masters in Farshire about Rirodev village. Tell them it came from there, and then you will know everything you need to know. Maybe then you will see that they deserve it.”
Marcus was dissatisfied with the farmers’ careful doublespeak, and began to formulate a plan for getting straight answers. He would grab them one by one, he decided, and push hellfire through their veins until their lips loosened and they got tired of playing games. Perhaps by separating them and putting the proper fear in them, they would come to respect the position they found themselves in.
Before he could suggest this, however, Anya spoke.
She said, “Thank you. We will leave now, as we promised. I hope things become better here, for you and your family, and I’m sorry for what you’ve lost.”
The farmers stared at her, and even Marcus was confounded by the immense sympathy in her voice – so much so that he could not even think to protest when she led him away.
***
The paladins rode slowly back toward Farshire in silence. Marcus glanced in Anya’s direction, curious about her thoughts, but she remained silent, eyes directly ahead. He twisted around in his saddle every few minutes, at first to be sure the farmers weren’t leaving their house and then, when the house was out of sight, to be sure that they weren’t planning an ambush from behind.
“You are a tool against the dark, Marcus,” Anya finally, and suddenly, said.
Marcus turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “Anya?”
She looked at him, and now he could tell that she was troubled. “You could have killed that boy, and it was cruel to use your abilities on that young man. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if the other two hadn’t surrendered.”
Marcus was silent for a moment. He resented her accusations, but not because they were untrue. He had made no attempt to end the conflict without injuries, it hadn’t even occurred to him. Anya’s claim made him angry because he didn’t want her to know that he didn’t care how badly the boy had been injured.
“You are right that I responded with too much force,” Marcus said after careful thought. “I didn’t mean to hurt or kill anyone, of course. I never drew my sword, after all. I was just…frightened, I suppose. They were trying to kill me, I felt like I needed to make sure they couldn’t. I did everything I could to preserve life in the short term. And I only called upon the Light to prevent more bloodshed.”
Marcus stared at his mentor with his head turned slightly to one side, as if he could gauge her reaction without her seeing his true intention. In truth his sword remained sheathed because he was toying with his attackers, and the battle would have been over too quickly and easily with a proper weapon in his hands, and the thought to be afraid had at no point entered his mind. Perhaps his show of holy power had been to end the conflict there, or maybe he wanted to strike fear in their hearts – he didn’t know. He did know, however, that Anya would disapprove of the truth. Most senior paladins would.
Anya sighed. “You must take control of your emotions, Marcus. As your connection with the Source grows, giving into fear can be disastrous. You will bring harm to everyone around you, and to yourself. And you must never call upon the Light simply because you are threatened. It is a dangerous tool to be used against monsters. You know this.”
Marcus nodded. He accepted the scolding bitterly, and resisted the urge to argue. She was lecturing him about the wrong thing, and it annoyed him that she did not know it, even if he did lead her to believe a falsehood about him. It was better she believed him inept, he knew, than suspect him of being…unlike her.
A rustling from the tall grasses caused the paladins to turn their horses around, and Anya drew her sword. Out of the grass came one of the farm men, panting heavily. He held his hands out to show that he was unarmed, and then hunched over with his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. After a moment, Marcus realized this was the man he had tormented with hellfire. His nose was healed and showed no sign of having been broken, but there was drying blood all down the front of his shirt.
“What is it?” Anya asked after giving the man a moment to find his breath.
“My conscience,” the man said between heavy breaths, “the words you said, and father said in parting.”
Anya looked to Marcus with her brow furrowed. “His accent is thick, what he’s saying isn’t making sense to me.”
Marcus shook his head and said, “It’s not his accent, he’s just not making sense.”
“Sorry,” the farmer said. “I’m sorry, a moment, please.”
And then he said, “When you left, you spoke with compassion. It was no fair what my father said to you, I see that. You’re not like the people from Farshire…I’m sorry, I cannot think of the words. My father told you to ask someone in Farshire about Rirodev, but you must not do that. You must not. If you will hunt the demon, go to Rirodev, but don’t tell anyone in Farshire.”
“Why?” Marcus said.
“Because they’ll kill you,” the farmer said.
It was morning again in Farshire as the paladins stabled their horses, and the townspeople were beginning to wander the wide, clean streets. The pair had camped overnight an hour from the town at Anya’s request, so that she could meditate on everything she’d learned without concerning herself with Olav’s inevitable questions.
“Let’s check on Farkus, and then leave a message with the magistrate’s office,” Anya said. “We can set out again in two hours.”
“Are you going to tell them where we’re going?” Marcus said.
Anya shook her head. “I think it best to play it safe. We obviously can’t trust the word of a frightened, superstitious, and hateful farm boy, but there’s no reason to take a possible risk. I’ll tell them we’re going to patrol the forest’s edge to the east and see if we can sense the demon’s presence there.”
Marcus nodded, and made every effort to keep tension out of his voice. “I’m going to find something to eat. I’ll meet you here in two hours,” he said. He was still angry with his mentor, but he didn’t want her to know that.
After a moment she nodded and said, “That isn’t a bad idea. Eat, then, and I’ll meet you here later. Take care what you say to any townspeople you meet on the way, however.”
Marcus nodded, and began to walk away.
“Marcus,” Anya called after him. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” he lied, “just tired. It was hard to sleep out there.”
Anya nodded her understanding and the paladins parted ways.
Marcus wandered the stone sidewalks for awhile, and found it hard not to trade greetings with passing townsmen, as each of them had a friendly smile for him. Twice he was held up with conversation, both men expressing their sincere thanks for the services the Brotherhood was rendering for their town. Despite his previous ire, Marcus found his mood lifting in the face of such easy camaraderie.
Eventually the smell of baking bread lured him into a small restaurant operated out of a converted house. The baker worked alongside his wife and teenaged son, and the three traded jokes as easily as they shared their responsibilities. Marcus requested his food from the wife, paid the father, and was served by the son, all without suggestions from the other two. He had planned to wander the streets while eating, but at the baker’s insistence he took a seat at a table by a low window and accepted water when it was offered.
And so that’s where Marcus ate, tearing off large chunks from the loaf and chewing slowly as he stared at the world outside. He felt…content, and thought he wouldn’t mind staring out that window for the entirety of his allotted two hours. His contemplation was soon interrupted by a high, amused voice, however.
“Is it customary in Knife’s Edge to eat bread without butter?” she’d said. She was tall and pretty, though not so pretty as to be striking. Only later would Marcus decide that she was, in fact, somewhat plain, but her humor, openness, and good mood went a long way to make her seem more attractive. It was a common phenomenon in Farshire.
“No,” Marcus answered with a grin, “I’ve just spent so much time on the road that if I was ever taught manners, I’ve long since forgotten them.”
The girl sat across from him and produced her own half-loaf of bread and a knife, and proceeded to cut and butter a thick slice, which she offered to him. Marcus accepted, and tore off a similar-sized chunk from his own loaf and offered it to her.
She laughed as she accepted. “Mine is the braided loaf,” she said. “Have you ever tried it? I don’t think there’s anything quite like it.”
Marcus shook his head, and he was clearly impressed when he took a bite out of the proffered slice. “It’s a little sweet,” he said. “I like the seeds on the top, too.”
The girl nodded, buttering the chunk of bread the paladin had given her in trade. “You must not be from around here. Their braided bread is pretty famous. That and I can’t remember the last time I saw a man carrying a sword in the open.”
“And you’re all white as lilies,” Marcus said.
“Well, and that,” the girl chuckled.
“I’m here investigating the…er.”
“Ah, the murders,” the girl said around a tiny mouthful of bread. “You’re a knight, then?”
“A squire, technically,” Marcus answered.
“What’s that?”
“As far as the Brotherhood is concerned, I’m a knight, but not yet allowed to interact with the world on an official capacity by myself. I’m a sort of apprentice.”
“Interesting,” the girl said, and chewed on her bread thoughtfully for awhile before asking another question. “How come I’ve never heard of the Brotherhood before?”
“We hide,” Marcus said around his own mouthful of bread. “It’s supposed to be a secret, but we’re a little more…out in the open now that the Necromancer is gone.”
“We heard about Raiaera, even up here,” she said. “Did you fight against Xe…against him?”
Marcus shook his head. “He’s part of the reason the Brotherhood was hiding. We’re a small order, and we don’t yet have enough knights to defend ourselves against something as dangerous as…well, as dangerous as he was. But we’re powerful, powerful enough that we’d be a threat, so it’s safe to say that any powerful evil would go out of their way to wipe us off the map. So we hid. For awhile there it looked like he was going to win, so the plan was to wait and grow, and then to depose him if and when he got complacent. Thankfully, he didn’t win. So we’ve come out of hiding to make sure no evil gains as much power as he did again. We nip the problem in the bud, so to speak.”
The girl chewed thoughtfully, and paused a moment at what Marcus said. She swallowed and cleared her throat, and she pointed at the paladin’s water questioningly. He offered it to her, and she drank, and smiled her thanks.
“Have you ever…you know, had to kill anyone?” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially with a mischievous smile.
Marcus’ smile darkly mirrored hers. “A few times,” he said.
“Oh, I bet it’s terrible,” she said with a shiver. “All bad people, right?”
“Of course,” Marcus said. “That’s what I do. I hunt bad people.”
“And demons!” the girl said, shaking her head in wonder. After a moment, she peered at him from the corner of her eye, and there was a tiny grin on her lips. She held the final bite of her bread mid-way to her mouth. “What if I were a bad person? Would you be able to kill me, do you think?”
Marcus chuckled, and the girl smiled as she popped the last piece of bread into her mouth. She chewed, looking both amused and pleased with herself for making him laugh. “Well?” she said.
“I don’t know,” Marcus said with a grin. “Bad people rarely have such pretty smiles, so I guess I find it hard to imagine.”
The girl smiled wide, but turned her eyes to the table. Marcus expected a blush that never came, but the girl didn’t start talking again until her smile faded. Her eyes were sad now, a little more serious.
“Do you think you’re close?” she asked softly.
“To the demon?”
She nodded.
“I think so,” Marcus said. “But I’ve felt it since I got here. Maybe it’s never been all that far away.”
*
Anya was slightly late to the stables: Marcus had already prepared both horses when she arrived, and she immediately noticed the change in his mood and grinned. “You’ve been chatting to pretty girls again,” she said.
Marcus grunted, and immediately affected the dour countenance his mentor was accustomed to, which made her laugh. “You’re a representative of the Brotherhood,” she scolded half-heartedly. “You shouldn’t run around shamelessly flirting with every skirt you see.”
“It wasn’t her skirt I was interested in,” Marcus muttered, and Anya punched him in the arm.
It was a short ride before he stopped bitching about his smarting arm, and thought to ask after Farkus.
“I just missed him,” Anya said. “He left us a letter. Hold on.”
She handed a carefully folded sheet of paper to Marcus, and he did his best to hold it steady so that he could read and ride at once.
In Farkus’ flowing script it said:
Comrades,
I have investigated the murder sites in Farshire. Unfortunately we’ve arrived too late for me to find anything of worth. The latest murder was two weeks ago, so the house has been thoroughly cleaned and the remains were long-since buried outside the town limits, as per custom.
Out of curiosity I began studying what town records I can convince Magistrate Krodt to part with. In some ways he is very eager to offer help, but in others he has proven to be very stubborn. I can understand why he would be possessive of these records. They contain family genealogies and firsthand accounts taken down by the town guard, which of course includes domestic disputes of every description. I don’t think the magistrate wants me to learn anything untoward about the victims and any dubious habits they might have had.
I tried to convince him that I take privacy very seriously, that I will respect the dead, that I don’t care about accusations of adultery and such, and that I have no reason to spread rumors about the town, but he doesn’t seem to be satisfied. I shall keep trying. Perhaps there is some clue in the records as to why the victims are being chosen.
While Magistrate Krodt considers my latest request, I think I will explore the church ruin. I am very curious about it, since it is so strange to see one abandoned here in Salvar. This is doubly so if what Krodt said is true, and it has been unused for fifteen years. My militia escort is getting sick of my questions about it, I can tell, and Magistrate Olav got angry with me the last time I brought it up, since it’s not connected to the murders. He’s probably right, and you would likely tell me to keep my mind on the task at hand, Anya.
Still, I’m bored and a walk would help my mind work, so I’m going to take a peek. I apologize if I miss your return, and I look forward to comparing notes. I hope you have learned something of worth.
Take care,
Alexander
“Bastard,” Marcus muttered. “Out having fun and exploring old buildings while we do all the actual work. Typical for scribes.”
Anya grinned as she accepted the letter and returned it to her pack.
Rirodev was everything they had expected Farshire to be when they first arrived there. It did not have streets so much as muddy gaps between the buildings, which had been placed haphazardly, as if in a camp. Black smoke rolled thin and lazy from the chimneys, which in turn were glorified holes in the roofs, and no one in the village had ever been rich enough to afford glass. Hides were used to cover what windows there were, and the doors were heavy, thick, and shoddy. There was rubbish everywhere: broken carts and rusty farm tools, empty barrels and boxes, tree stumps, bricks, and even dead animals.
The village was fairly well-populated, though it did not compare to Farshire, and the people mirrored their home. They were ever-unwashed and dressed in ill-fitting, uncomfortable rags, and Marcus supposed that they shared a mouthful of rotting teeth between them. They did not seem to work in the truest sense, but instead seemed intent on personal tasks that improved individual gain, usually at someone else’s detriment. They argued about the value of everything, stole unashamedly, and collected junk. What’s worse, they spoke a dialect of Salvic that even Marcus could not decipher, and pretended that they couldn’t speak Trade, though they understood it when it benefited them.
It seemed to Marcus that Anya spent an eternity trying to learn anything at all from them, but no one would answer questions for free and if Anya offered anything, an argument would inevitably arise about its worth. Whenever something was offered for information, they would challenge her to do better, until it became like a universally-known and often-spoken prayer: can’t you do better?
“We won’t find anything here,” Marcus finally said. “In fact, it would probably be best if we burnt the place to the ground.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes,” Anya sighed. Marcus hadn’t been joking, but he didn’t say so.
Eventually the paladins learned that the village did, in fact, have a leader of sorts. They found him in what passed for the pub, and discovered that he led by virtue of being the largest, most aggressive, and foulest of them, and he was surrounded by similarly foul men, who seemed to subsist on what scraps their leader threw them as payment for their support.
When Anya attempted to introduce herself to the man – whom everyone simply called “Mayor” in the Salvic tongue – he laughed at her, which caused his assembled followers to laugh boisterously as well. She was confounded until Marcus was able to work out a few words, and he explained.
“They’re mocking our hair,” he said. In fact they were mocking her hair, and making a game of questioning her gender.
Anya, being Anya, struggled to calm them down enough to talk. At first she attempted to join in on the joke, resorting to gentle self-deprecation, which only caused their jokes to grow crueler. She spoke in soothing tones, but they drowned her out with their shouts and whoops. When at last she became angry, Mayor stood up and loomed over the senior paladin.
“You are a woman,” Mayor said in his molasses-thick Salvic accent, “even if you are ugly like a man. I am man. Go away with your fat friend, or I will show you how to be man.”
Anya sighed and set her jaw, and Marcus watched her closely, hopefully. Insults had no special ability to enrage him, but he found himself very much in the mood to fight. Still, he couldn’t initiate battle, especially after the events of the day before. If Anya initiated the fight, however…well, then he couldn’t possibly be blamed for fighting in the defense of his mentor.
“People are dying!” Anya shouted.
Mayor raised his hand and brought it down in one smooth motion, which brought a whooping cheer from his followers. The cheer faded swiftly, however. Anya had caught Mayor’s hand by the wrist, and then she had audibly crushed it. The villager fell to his knees screaming, and he struggled vainly to free himself from the paladin’s grip. No matter how violently he resisted or pulled, he could not budge the smaller knight-woman. When he reached for her with his free hand she smacked it away, and curled her metal-clad fingers in the greasy tangles of his hair. Her eyes blazed with golden light.
When she spoke, the Source-light could be heard in it. Her voice was powerful: loud, though she had made no effort to raise its volume. She might have been whispering, but her voice was booming, echoing in the chest – in the soul.
“I seek a demon,” spake Anya, and dust rattled free from the wooden rafters and rained throughout the pub. Everyone scrambled away from her but Mayor, who was captive, and Marcus, who watched in mute fascination.
When Mayor produced nothing but whimpers, Anya leaned closer to him, and her eyes blazed brighter, hotter. “Words, gnat, or I’ll burn this village and everything you’ve ever known to ash. What do you know about demons?”
Mayor screamed, because Anya was grinding the bones of his wrist to gory dust. When the temperature around him began to noticeably rise, he vomited words through his tears at last, over and over, words Anya could not understand. She turned her sun-gaze to Marcus, and he nearly recoiled.
“I think he’s saying there’s a farmstead on the northeastern edge of the village,” Marcus said, and his voice seemed soft, insubstantial. “He’s saying a name, Tasski.”
Anya released Mayor’s wrist, and the fire in her eyes subsided slowly. She slapped him open-handed, and he sprayed crimson spittle to the floor as he fell unconscious.
There was no line of demarcation between Rirodev village and the Tasski farmstead. If there had ever been fields, they were long gone now. Goats and thin hogs wandered the land, searching out small scraps in the gummy earth, and Marcus supposed their presence technically made this place a sort of farm.
The paladins were somewhat impressed with the farmhouse, which was quite unlike the other structures in Rirodev in that it had once been noteworthy. It had an upper floor, and though its windows were all boarded up, they once housed glass. It had a porch, and thin slits along the brick at the base of the house suggested the presence of a basement or a cellar of some sort. Once, this had been the pride of some well-off farmer. Now it was skeletal ghost of its former glory, of course, but that skeleton suggested rural nobility in life.
“We’ve found it,” Anya said with the slightest sigh.
Marcus nodded, undoing the straps that held his sword and sheath to his back. “I sense it too,” he said as he removed his jacket. He drew his sword and hung his jacket and sheath on one of the rotten wooden posts that flanked the stairs up to the farmhouse.
Meanwhile, Anya was double-checking the joints of her armor and the straps that fastened it to her. She adjusted her gloves, and then her boots, and then finally pulled a mail coif up from around her neck so that it rested properly on her head. When she was sure of her armor, she drew her short sword and readied her dagger. “You’ll stay close to me and I will go first,” Anya said. It was not a lesson or a suggestion, it was an order, and Marcus would obey it unthinkingly.
Anya was already taking the stairs to the porch carefully. There was no more time to prepare, and they both knew it: the sun was swiftly westering, and they wanted as much light on their side as they could manage. The boards groaned feebly with every step, and the paladins made every effort to walk along the edges of the porch so as not to fall through. When they reached the door, Anya did not knock. She went through the door shoulder-first, and it exploded into a wave of splinters without giving her pause.
The interior was dark and musty, and Marcus could see where floodwater had risen up to a foot along the walls, discoloring and rotting them before drying up. Whatever furniture that had been there was long since gone, probably stolen or sold to the vultures in Rirodev. In the corners there were shallow, murky puddles, from which rose the hateful malodor of decay and waste.
The knights moved through the house cautiously with their weapons at the ready, their eyes glinting with internal fire. The tattoos on Marcus’ left arm glowed intensely, casting heavenly illumination into the dark corners which frightened skittering rats and roaches and spiders of many descriptions. If there were fear in the knights, it could not be detected: they moved aggressively as if hunting for a hated pest, not the monstrous demon they expected to find.
The stairs to the second floor were collapsed due to rot, and so they left it behind. They shared the same concern, of course: if the demon could reason, it would find a way to make its nest on the second floor where it would be harder to reach. They could not proceed to find a way to climb to the second floor if the first contained threats, however, so they moved on.
Near the back of the house, their hunt finally paid off. At the end of a long hallway there was a door, and candlelight flickered from beneath it. Anya pointed, and Marcus nodded. Together they charged the door, and though Marcus kicked it open, Anya entered first with a ferocious shout.
When Marcus entered after her, however, he found his mentor lowering her blade.
In the gloomy candlelight they beheld a small woman barely out of girlhood, dressed in the common rags of Rirodev. She held a rusty iron pole in her hands, which had been crudely sharpened at the end. She held the makeshift weapon before herself, and her eyes reflected the candle’s light even through the tangled mop of black hair that hung in ropes over her face.
“He’s my husband,” she hissed at the paladins. “He’s my husband, and you won’t touch him.”
Behind her, in the shadows, a darkling figure writhed painfully on a stained mattress.
It had taken nearly an hour for Anya to talk the girl into lowering her weapon and calming down. Marcus removed himself to the back corner of the room, where he kept his eyes on the figure behind the girl. He could not see her husband well, as he was covered in many thin sheets, but the demonic energies that washed through the room were unmistakable. They had found their monster.
Her name was Beta, and her husband was Leonid.
“Tell us what happened,” Anya said, and her voice was soothing.
“He was cursed,” Beta said, and her lips quivered. “His name was cursed just before we were married, and one by one the Tasski family turned into monsters and killed everyone they loved and then died. But Leonid is different. He would never hurt me, and I have kept him safe.”
Anya nodded. “I can see that, Beta. Did you tie him to the bed?”
“He told me to,” Beta said quickly. “But I keep him safe, and I bring him food and water, and he’s a good man. He said he would fight it off like a sickness by being good and keeping his mind good and clean, and he will. He’ll get better.”
Anya nodded slightly. “May I see him, Beta?”
“No!” Beta shouted, and once again raised her weapon.
“Beta, do you know what I am?” Anya said. “I’m a healer, and I have great magic. We call it the Light, and we use it to cure people like your husband – like Leonid. We destroy demons and bad magic. I want to help him, Beta, but I need to see him.”
Beta stared at Anya for a long moment and, eventually, she began to slowly lower her weapon. Though she had no logical reason to believe Anya, Beta found that she could feel the truth of it: there was something strange about these two knights, something a person could sense if they knew to try.
Beta dropped her weapon, and sighed. She turned away from Anya and approached her husband carefully, and then removed the sheets that covered the upper half of his body. If Leonid was aware, he did not show it.
His body was changed. His skin was black and oily, as if he were the viscous liquid itself forced into the vague shape of a man. The lids of his eyes were gone, and his eyes bulged, and the veins were all burst. Somehow, one could tell that eyes were not part of whatever Leonid was becoming, and the organs were already dead and being expelled from their sockets. His cheeks and jaw were misshapen with teeth that were too many and too large for the mouth that held them and his lips were bloody and tattered where he had clearly begun to chew through them in order to facilitate his transformation. His limbs were bound to the metal bedposts by a network of sturdy leather straps, but he was not currently struggling. Beta sobbed at what she saw, and almost reached to touch him, but stopped herself.
“He bit me last time,” she whispered. “And he’s gotten so quiet. He used to scream and scream, until his throat was so raw that he didn’t sound human anymore.”
Marcus set his jaw to keep his mouth closed. Even he was not so pitiless as to tell her that her husband wasn’t human anymore.
Anya surveyed Beta’s husband, her face hard. Eventually she turned her eyes to the grieved wife without turning her head.
Beta didn’t have to look at them. A strange peace came over her features, calmness, and she sighed and said, “He can’t be saved, can he?”
“No,” Anya said sympathetically. “If Leonid is in there anymore, he cannot hold out for another night. This was once your husband, but he’s gone now.”
Beta was silent for just a moment, and then, at last, she looked at Anya. “Can you give him peace?”
Anya nodded, and Marcus sighed. The hunt was over; all that remained was the act.
“The smithy next to your farm,” he said quietly, “is there iron left in it?”
Beta looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there.
“We use iron to...” Marcus paused, reconsidering his words. “We’ll bury him with iron. It will prevent it – him – from coming back, or being used for spells later.”
Beta nodded, though she didn’t understand. “There should be iron,” she said. “The villagers might have stolen it, but probably not. They stay away from the farm. They’re afraid of it.”
Marcus nodded once, and then left the room.
*
The demon did not react when Anya’s blade bit the skin. Its transformation from man to monster was in a special stage where the body was fully occupied by neither, and so there was none of the awareness necessary to express pain. The blade entered the heart smoothly, gracefully, and the shortest moment passed before the abomination that had been Leonid Tasski stopped breathing.
Beta wept quietly as Anya cleaned her sword. When the blade was safely back in its sheath, Anya pressed her hand to the corpse’s head and called upon the Source-light, but nothing happened. The body was devoid of iniquity: the demon was dead.
Anya sighed.
“It is done. The people of Farshire can rest easy again,” she said.
Beta sniffled. “What do you mean?” she said.
“We were summoned by the magistrate in Farshire, to the southeast,” Anya explained. “A demon was terrorizing the town. I’m afraid your husband must have escaped at some point, and slaked the demon’s thirst far from here, where he couldn’t hurt you.”
“No,” Beta said, “I told you, I kept him here, safe. I tied him to the bed when he told me to, when he was still Leonid. Here he has stayed for…gods, months now. Leonid has never killed. The straps held. I slept there, in that corner, and whenever he struggled I was awake to watch. I couldn’t sleep through it when he screamed.”
Anya’s brow furrowed. “You’re sure of this?”
“Yes.”
Realization dawned on the Vindicator’s face. “You said a curse had been place on Leonid’s family, which turned them into demons. You said they died.”
“They did,” Beta said. “Leonid’s father and uncle first, and then his older brother and his wife. They killed many people in Rirodev until the villagers killed two of them. And then Leonid and Iosef killed the remaining two in the forest last year.”
“Iosef? Who is Iosef?”
“Leonid’s younger brother,” Beta said. “But he isn’t here. He left just before Leonid began getting sick. He said he was going south.”
“South?” Anya said. “South? Why did he go south?”
Beta shook her head and shrugged. “He said he was going to find the people responsible for the curse. He was going to save Leonid, but we never…do you think…?”
“Gods, Beta,” Anya cursed. “Iosef is the demon, and he’s still out there.”
Beta shook her head. “That’s impossible,” she said. “If he were alive, if he were like his father, I would be dead by now. They always come back to Rirodev, no matter how far they run before it happens…wait!”
But Anya was gone, running as fast as her legs would carry her to the abandoned smithy.
Marcus was no blacksmith, but he had enough experience through observation to know how the forge worked. He found dry coal and dumped it into the hearth, lit it, and then used the bellows to feed the flame until it was ready to go into the firepot. When the forge was running hot enough he began gathering the loose bits of iron he found around the smithy, and made some estimations about what he could do with it.
Standard practice was to run iron or silver blades beneath the demon’s skin before disposing of it, which would effectively negate any black magic attempted with the demon’s body as a component. Book doubted he could forge any sort of workable blade, but he supposed that basic chunks or strips of iron wouldn’t be difficult. They could puncture the corpse with their weapons, and then fit the iron bars into the wounds.
He threw a lead bowl into the firepot, and then began tossing old horseshoes and misshapen tongs into the bowl to melt. He found a small handful of rusted farm tools, and even a broken sword. He took these and pounded the rust off of them on the anvil before adding them to the bowl. The sword was still too long, and so he shoved the blade into the burning coals to soften it a bit.
He turned away from the forge and went back to hunting for iron. As he was turning over an old cart and clearing a pile of moldy hay from the ground, he realized the light was dimming, so he returned to the forge and pushed more coal from the hearth into the firepot. The heat flared, and he was surprised, as he would have expected it to give off more light given how very hot it was. He operated the bellows for awhile, and began to feel…off. No matter how much he fed the flame, the light continued to dim, until it seemed that there was nothing but dying cinders in the firepot.
Marcus drew his sword and turned against the deepening shadows. Outside there was no moon, and from here he could not see the house – or anything for that matter. The darkness was thickening, becoming absolute, like an impenetrable wall.
It is pitch black.
Marcus put his back to a wall, and willed the Light to flow through him. He closed his eyes and exhaled, relieved to feel its heat in his limbs. When he opened his eyes, though, he saw nothing. He looked down to where he knew his left arm was, but the glow of his tattoos appeared to be only the slightest glimmer in the dark. He was blind, and his powers could not pierce the dark.
And he felt something in the dark with him.
Helplessness fed fear, which, like coal, ignited and became rage. Marcus growled into the silent blackness – and then the blackness growled back.
The squire swung his sword wide in the direction of the sound, but connected with nothing. He overextended himself, which made recovery slow, and left him open to attack from the left. The strike came fast and hard, and there was incredible force behind it: Marcus left the ground and collided with a wall, and then fell to the ground. There was a sharp pain in his right hand, and it began to feel wet, sticky, and hot: he’d landed on something, and he was bleeding.
He heard low snuffling in the dark, like a massive dog, and it was near. He kicked out with both legs toward the noise, and this time his attack found its target. At the moment of impact there was a burst of light from the forge, a momentary flash that began to quickly fade again. He had broken the monster’s concentration.
In that instant of light, Marcus saw his attacker. He – it – was much like Leonid had been, black-skinned and oily. It had no eyes, and its mouth was wide and horrible, full of long bloody teeth that jutted in every direction like a fan of spears. Unlike Leonid, it was big, hulking, with disproportionately long limbs, massive ears, and in place of a nose it had grisly gashes in its skull.
As the light began to fade again, Marcus cried out and gripped the hilt of his sword with his left hand, and swung it in a wide arc toward the monster’s neck. The demon was faster, however, and caught the sword in mid-swing, and the blade did not bite into its skin. The darkness fell again, concealing everything, and the paladin’s sword was painfully wrenched out of his considerable grip.
A low, rhythmic, rumbling sound came out of the dark, echoing throughout the smithy. Marcus realized the beast was laughing at him.
He lashed out with his feet where he thought he heard the sound, but his boots met nothing. He heard rustling to his right, and lashed out with his elbow, but again there was only air. When he heard it again to his left, he lunged forward and swung wider, and this time his arm was caught in the beast’s hold. Marcus yelled and struggled, but the monster was stronger and held him fast, and then pain screamed from his right shoulder – the most profound agony Marcus had ever felt. He knew, somewhere deep in his mind, that the demon was biting him, pushing its spear-teeth into and through his shoulder, grinding them against the bone. It intended to chew his right arm off.
Marcus brought his left arm to bear, striking the demon in the head over and over, aiming for the ears and the nose. This seemed to frustrate the monster, and it released him and shoved him violently. The paladin’s lower back struck something hard and he grunted. His right arm was savaged and useless, he felt blood everywhere, coating him, and his head was light. Reality was fading, and he was barely aware enough to feel panic. Death was on him.
A strange realization came upon him. I hit the forge, he thought. It seemed an eternity passed where he wondered why it mattered, or what good it did him to know where he was or what he had been broken against. He couldn’t feel his legs, but then he couldn’t feel much of anything.
The demon laughed again, and Marcus growled. In his rage, he reached up with his left hand and groped for something, anything, and he acted so fast that he did not question the feel of a sword hilt in his hand. He swung, and once again he felt the beast catch the blade in its hand.
And then it screamed.
Light once again burst, filling the room. There was the demon, looming over Marcus’ broken body, and in its right hand it held a sword blade: the broken blade Marcus had tossed into the fire to melt. It was red-hot now, but not yet molten, and smoke rose from the demon’s palm where it held the blade. A putrid odor filled the smithy, even over the smell of burning coal.
Marcus Book groaned and, with one last burst of strength, he yanked the captive blade out of the demon’s grip, and then he stabbed forward with all of his might. The blade pierced the monster in the abdomen, searing flesh and filling the room with a fresh burst of the smell of burning demon flesh.
But the monster was not finished. Enraged, it lunged forward and opened its maw wide, and Marcus closed his eyes as he felt the teeth-spears press into the flesh of his throat on both sides.
But then the pain subsided.
He opened his eyes again, and saw a black figure struggling with a figure clad in blazing golden light. The Light tossed the Dark into the wall, and drove a silvery blade through its shoulder, pinning it there. It screamed horribly, inhumanly, and the Light gripped the Dark by the arm and pulled. There was a sickening crack and a heavy splash, like someone had emptied a bucket onto naked stones.
Marcus’ vision blurred, and he could no longer make out the opposing figures, and then everything faded to black.
Marcus woke up, and there was sunlight from the window – the grey, anemic light of the hated Farshire County, but sunlight nonetheless.
“Anya,” he groaned.
“Marcus,” she said, and her smiling face appeared over him.
“Anya,” he said again. “Tell me I’m not in the bed where a madwoman kept a larval grue captive for at least two months.”
Anya glanced down at the bed, and then shrugged.
“For gods’ sake,” Marcus sighed.
*
Anya’s ability to heal was strong, but it took the rest of the night of the attack to stabilize the battered squire, and then the entirety of the next day to heal his wounds. He did not wake again until early the day after that, and at Anya’s insistence he spent that day resting. Before dawn on the third day after his fateful battle with the demon, Marcus got out of bed and was fully healed, albeit stiff, sore, and a little traumatized.
While he recovered, Anya had laid Leonid and Iosef Tasski to rest in the proper way, with the added precaution of burning the bodies before burying the ashes. Beta had, to Anya’s surprise, aided in every aspect of the act, and had procured food and water from Rirodev.
Now the three of them sat outside in the hour just on the cusp of dawn, watching as the horizon brightened. The remains of a small fire smoldered between them, casting a left-leaning wisp of smoke into the air.
“Do you have it in you to explain again, Beta?” Anya said. “I will help if you need it, but it would be best if Marcus heard you explain it. I want to be sure the details are exactly right.”
Beta nodded without looking at Anya, staring intently into the distance.
“Many years ago,” she said softly, “I do not know how many, Farshire was a trading post, and Rirodev was a farmhold, and they were very similar but nothing like they are today. They were…common. The Tasski family owned this farmhold, and they were very successful. All the other farms sprang up around the Tasski farm, usually owned by farmhands who earned their wealth here, and then moved nearby to run their own lands.
“The roads that led to all the farms met at a crossroads, and that’s where they built the Farshire trading post, but it was small in those days – as I said. The farms were very self-sufficient, and so there was rarely a reason to go to the crossroads to trade. It probably would have stayed little more than a trading post but…something changed.
“I don’t know how many years ago it happened. It was before I was born. My mother used to say that the life was leaving the land. At first we barely noticed it: the summer days grew colder and dimmer, the land produced less, and the forests became dark and dangerous. The birds stopped singing. It wasn’t as bad as it is now, but we could see it happening.
“About the same time, the farms began to hear about a group of merchants in Farshire. These merchants began spending great amounts of money, importing things nobody here had ever dreamed of. They hired farmhands to build houses, then businesses, and the streets, and…well, you’ve seen Farshire. Many of the farmhands stayed in Farshire, because that’s where the best work was, and the rich merchants named themselves the first town council.
“The farm people became bitter, because as things became better in Farshire, they became worse for the farms. The people of Farshire made no attempt to hide it, either. In the time of my father, when the farms still produced a surplus, he would go to Farshire to try and sell the excess as his father had before him. But now the merchants of Farshire demanded he pay an expensive tax to sell there, which he could not pay. Even if he could afford the tax, his crops would not have sold because the town merchants had such cheap goods.
“There were not many years of surplus left, anyway. Everyone’s fields became blighted. My father starved to death, and my mother brought me to Rirodev because she thought the Tasski farm would have fared better, but it hadn’t. In those days the Tasskis still lived in this house, and kept some order in Rirodev.
“Rumors began to circulate about Farshire, that men were coming from the town and demanding young people, who they took away and nobody ever saw again. Nobody believed it at first, because it was easy to hate the town for its success when we were suffering. There were many untrue stories about it back then.
“But men from Farshire did show up in Rirodev, and they offered small amounts of money to mothers and fathers for their young, able-bodied sons and daughters. They always sought out the most beautiful girls and boys, and ignored the weak or sick, and the ugly. They told us they needed workers, but nobody ever sent letters from Farshire when they left. My mother used to hide me when the men came from Farshire. I used to hate her for that, but now…
“Eventually the men from Farshire stopped paying for the children, and just asked for them. When we resisted, they brought militiamen, who took the young people away and threatened to kill anyone who fought back or ran. Sometimes, a brave man would go to Farshire to look for the people they took, but the ones that came back said they couldn’t find any of the lost ones.
“The Tasski family was still proud, then, and a few years ago – perhaps six, now? – they organized the people of Rirodev and made them spears in the smithy. When some men from Farshire came for the young people, the men of Rirodev drove them off and tipped their carriage over and stole their horses. I can’t remember ever laughing so hard, or being so happy.
“One of the Tasski boys, who had pushed the carriage over, saw me laughing, and…well, it was Leonid. He wanted to marry me right away, but he didn’t have enough money for a ring. He was going to buy one in Farshire, but finally he just made me one.”
Beta showed them her hand, and sure enough her finger was adorned with a knobby loop of silver. Anya told her it was beautiful and, despite being crude and a little too large, the sentiment therein made it beautiful.
“We were married in front of the house. Only the Tasskis came, but I was very happy. But then the curse happened and…well, here you are. When Leonid’s father disappeared, Mayor started bullying the villagers, and nobody could do anything to stop him. The villagers took everything out of the house and we couldn’t stop them. They might have taken me, too, but then the monsters started coming at night and they became afraid of the house.”
“You think someone in Farshire put this curse on the Tasski family?” Marcus said.
“I am sure of it. They said we would suffer for what we did to them, but we just thought they were idle words, or that they meant to come back with more militiamen, but they never did. How could we know?”
Marcus nodded thoughtfully, and spent a long time considering everything that had happened since his arrival in Farshire.
“It fits, in a way,” he said at last. “They told us that something precious had been taken from them at Sladansk farm. Perhaps they meant a son, or a daughter.”
“Vlad Manderley,” Anya said in agreement. “Olav could not, or would not, tell me why he was at Sladansk.”
“So you think Iosef killed Manderley,” Marcus mused. “My experience with grues is limited to books and having my arm nearly chewed off by one, but from what I understand, they have a territory and stay there. If Iosef killed Manderley, who killed the men in Farshire, and who tried to kill me in the smithy?”
Beta shook her head. “Iosef and Leonid were the last Tasskis; all the others were dead before you arrived here. Before he attacked you, I thought Iosef was dead too.”
“It was Iosef,” Anya said. “His territory was here in Rirodev. His transformation would have been just beginning when he intercepted Vlad Manderley, so he would have been at least partially in control of himself. Once Manderley was dead, he went to Farshire and continued taking his revenge until the transformation was complete and he returned here. I can only guess that he’s been here the entire time. Perhaps he did not kill Beta because she stayed so near to Leonid at night.”
“That means we weren’t sensing the grue in Farshire,” Marcus said. “He was gone before we arrived, and a grue, however powerful, would not leave such a presence in its wake.”
Anya nodded, and sighed. “If Beta’s story is true, there is reason to believe that Farshire has made an infernal pact. This would explain its uncommon wealth, success, and safety. And it means Farkus is in great danger. Our task is not yet done here.”
“I’m as healed as I’m going to get,” Marcus said.
Anya nodded. “Good. Then as soon as the sun rises, we leave for Farshire.”
They left Beta at the Tasski house. They offered to take her back to the Brotherhood, to protect her and give her a place to stay and work and live, but she refused. She told them that if they succeeded, she hoped that life would return to the land, and she would return the Tasski farm and Rirodev to its former glory. She was the last Tasski, after all.
Anya blessed Beta and gave her a full half of all the money the paladins had left. Marcus worried that Mayor would take the money, but Anya told her squire that she expected the brute to die of infection due to his mangled wrist. Marcus was surprised at his mentor, and though he knew he should be repulsed by her cruelty he instead felt kinship.
The ride back to Farshire was slower than the paladins liked, but it couldn’t be helped. There hadn’t been much for the horses to eat in Rirodev, and so they were sluggish and tired and it would do more harm than good to push them. They rode in silence for the most part, contemplating what lie ahead, but at one point they did speak.
“Thank you,” Marcus told his mentor. “You saved my life.”
Anya smiled. “You’re very welcome. I was afraid I was going to lose my first squire, which wouldn’t make me look very good to the Masters at all.”
Marcus grinned, and a moment passed before his lips relaxed and he spoke again.
“You’re more powerful than I realized,” he said. “I remember it only vaguely, and my vision was blurring when you came, but I saw you rip the demon to pieces. I was just a toy to it.”
“You did well, Marcus,” Anya said, shaking her head. “And I pity the next demon you encounter, because you have learned a lot. You faced death at monstrous hands and fought to the end. That night you struggled to survive as a man. When the demon had its teeth in you, you didn’t call on the Light: you fought it off as a man would, and the man died. The next time a demon has its teeth in you, it will burn. Only the paladin is left in you.”
Marcus nodded, and felt…good. For the first time, he truly felt like her student and that she had much to teach him, and he much to learn. He peered at her from the corner of his eye and felt a strange swell of pride, and realized with a shock that he honestly respected his mentor.
*
Once again they camped a short distance from Farshire, this time to ensure that they could enter under the cover of night. They meditated in shifts and steeled their minds and hearts and, when the moon was overhead and the town fully silent, they crept in.
A small handful of Farshire militiamen strolled the wide streets by night, but they were not alert or suspicious – things rarely happened in the dark here, and the town had little to fear from prowlers. The knights had no trouble avoiding these patrols, and made their way first to the inn.
They were dismayed but unsurprised that Farkus was not in their appointed room. There were no notes waiting for them this time, and Anya thought that the room had not been disturbed since she’d seen it last. Farkus had never returned.
They remained in the room for half an hour while Anya considered possibilities, and Marcus watched the patrols from the window. “Anya,” he said at last, “Farkus’ letter said he was going to explore the abandoned church, yes?”
Anya joined him at the window and looked out over the town. “Yes, why?”
“Well, watch the patrols. They seem to revolve around the church, and there are more guards stationed near it than any other building, even the magistrate’s house.”
Anya watched the patrols for a moment, nodding slowly as it became more and more apparent that Marcus was right. “Why do they guard an abandoned building,” she muttered.
“As far as we know, Farkus went there and never came back,” Marcus said. “And he was right, there’s something very strange about an unused church in Salvar, even this far from Knife’s Edge. If we’re going to start anywhere, the church seems like the best place to me.”
Anya nodded once, and they returned to the town streets.
In the interest of silence, Anya had removed her armor and dressed herself in the light leather she wore on the road when there was no threat of violence. Marcus was similarly dressed, though he still carried his sword as it was the only weapon he owned. This allowed them to approach the church undetected, despite the fact that it was better defended and patrolled than they first realized.
They entered through the side of the church, where the priests of the Sway would have dwelt, and there the church was truly abandoned. As they entered the church proper, however, they discovered that the structure was very much in use – though not for its intended purpose.
Though they had come to expect it, the proof of demonic influence in Farshire astonished the paladins. The church had been desecrated. The pews had been removed, which had the effect of making the structure seem cavernous, and no more than six robed figures knelt where the pious congregation was meant to gather. They performed a low, monotone chant, each man speaking a different part so that the whole was discordant and ugly.
Large infernal symbols adorned the walls, wrought of steel and gold and anointed by blood which was undoubtedly human. Marcus looked up and sneered, and Anya followed his gaze. Perhaps fifty human corpses hung upside down from the high rafters by chains wrapped around their ankles. The corpses were mummified and ancient, but their facial expressions spoke of painful deaths and a tremendous cloud of flies buzzed overhead, moving in a way that reminded Marcus of a large school of fish.
A tremendous idol stood against the far wall of the church, facing its wicked congregation. What it depicted the paladins could not guess, for it seemed to them that a copper statue had been heated and allowed to melt and warp and then cool again until the original figure was so deformed that the old shape could no longer be discerned.
In front of the statue was the upraised platform where the altar should have rested. Instead, the marble had been chipped away to the building’s foundations, where a staircase leading into the depths of the earth was constructed. Torchlight flickered from below, but the paladins could otherwise see nothing.
Anya silently drew her short sword, and Marcus followed her example. They came out of the dark and crossed the unholy hall from behind the chanting cultists. Anya did not hesitate: her sword pierced the first hood and came up again bloody, and the chanting quieted. The others kept chanting for a few seconds, until Marcus impaled the second of them. The rest removed their hoods to look about, and their eyes widened in horror.
The paladins recognized them as members of the Magistrate’s retinue, but were not surprised. The cultists tried to run, but did not get far and no one answered their screams.
Anya and Marcus were unleashed, and the Light flowed through them. They were maddened, and spent a long time destroying every infernal idol. They toppled pewter statues and scattered spell circles drawn in ash. They tore tapestries from the walls and tossed them into a pile, which they set on fire with torches, and into the fire they threw every grimoire and record and scrawled note they could find, and then they entrusted the cultists’ bodies to the bonfire.
When there was nothing left that they could feasibly destroy, though they made a protracted effort to topple the giant idol, they entered the altar-staircase and descended into the earth, panting and fire-eyed and drenched in the sweat of their exertions.
Anya and Marcus descended into the earth beneath the desecrated church, weapons held high. The stairs and the walls were carved out of the earth, and torchlight lit the way from somewhere deep below. The air grew colder as they went on, until at last the stairway ended in a short hallway, which in turn opened up into a cavern perhaps fifty yards across.
“Hello,” someone said softly, and the paladins turned to find Olav Krodt sitting on the floor next to the cavern entrance, his back to the wall. He was dressed in the black robes of a cultist with the hood back. He seemed tired, pitiable, and defeated. Anya grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him up with one hand, then pinned him against the stone wall.
“Black magic,” she hissed, “human sacrifice, abductions, mass murder, the summoning of demons, the manipulation of two knights of the Order. The suffering of an entire region. Do you deny any of it?”
Fear was in the magistrate’s eyes, but resignation as well. “I have done all these things, and many more,” he admitted.
“Why?!” Anya roared, and her Light-touched voice rumbled throughout the cavern.
Krodt squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his cheek to the cool stone wall behind him: it was all he could do to flinch from Anya’s wrath. “I followed in my father’s footsteps,” he said, his voice wavering. “We all did.”
“Tell me,” Anya said. “Tell me everything.”
“What is there to tell?” Olav said. “My father was an exiled priest! When they sent him here, this place was just a pathetic outpost in the middle of nowhere, and the primitive farmers did not care about civilization or trade or commerce. They ignored him when he tried to make something of Farshire, everyone ignored him. So he made a pact, and through it he brought civilization, and safety. He brought peace – not even the power-hungry Church could touch us!”
“At what cost?”
“At any cost,” Olav said, his eyes blazing. “The merchants were willing to pay it, when the money started coming. The fine marble, the clothes from Radasanth, the rich merchants and their pretty daughters, they would pay any price to bring civilization to this Thayne-forsaken region.”
“But you didn’t pay it,” Marcus said. “You took children from the farmers. And then what?”
“Why shouldn’t they pay for their ignorance? Surely you’ve been to Rirodev, you’ve seen the way they live. When It asked for humans, it was not a hard decision to make – it was a good deal, the perfect deal. They stood between us and civilization, and now they give their worthless lives to bring civilization here.”
“Was the health of the land part of the deal?” Anya said.
Olav seemed stricken by the question, and his brow furrowed. “No,” he whispered at last. “No, we didn’t see that happening until it was too late.”
“And when you did, you looked the other way?” Anya said.
“What else could we do? The deal was made, and It made it clear that if we reneged It would take what It was owed,” Olav said.
“Why bring us here, if everything was going so smoothly for you?” Anya said.
“The damn Tasski brothers,” the magistrate sighed. “It had promised to deal with them, and at first It did. When Vlad was killed, though, I knew what was happening. I recognized the work of the Tasski-monster. I told It what was happening and…and It laughed. I had no choice but to seek outside help.”
“Where is the man who came with us?” Marcus said.
Olav glanced between the paladins, and did not seem willing to answer. “I don’t know,” he said at last, quietly.
Anya used her free hand to break one of Olav’s fingers. When his screaming subsided, he found it in himself to speak between sobs. “Deeper in the cave,” he said, “there are cages. The sacrifices are kept there before…”
Anya had heard enough. She grabbed Magistrate Krodt by the head with both hands and gave him a brutal shake, and a low, sickening snap sounded from his neck. She dropped his corpse, and the paladins continued deeper into the cave to find Farkus.
As Krodt had told them, there were ten cages lining a shadowy wall of the cavern. Six of them were empty, and one of the remaining cages was occupied by a corpse. Anya shrieked in frustration, and began shattering the locks on the cages with the blade of her sword. Together, the paladins removed the surviving would-be sacrifices, and then Anya set to the task of healing them: they were dangerously malnourished.
Farkus was not among them, but one of the young female victims bore a definite Sladansk familial resemblance, though she was a great deal softer and prettier than any of them had been. “Look for Farkus,” Anya said while weaving the Light. “I’m going to get these children out of here.”
Marcus moved deeper into the cave without a word.
*
Marcus might have overlooked it. In the darkest part of the cavern there was a narrow crack in the wall, which was nearly impossible to see from the cavern proper. He had to turn himself sideways to shimmy through it, and even then his chest and back were often squeezed by outcropping stones. There were bloodstains on the stones and on the ground: they had undoubtedly come from struggling victims being dragged this way.
The crevice opened up again in another underground room, but this was not a mere cavern roughly carved from the stone. It was comparatively small, perhaps thirty feet by another thirty or a little more, and the walls were appropriately reinforced by large rust-red bricks. A single tapestry adorned the wall opposite the narrow entrance, on which was embroidered an infernal symbol: a name, no doubt.
The room had an obvious and solitary purpose: it housed a large metal sarcophagus. The sarcophagus was fifteen feet long, at least, and more than five feet across. Marcus could not say what metal it had been forged from: it was glossy and black, and unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The only light in the room came from tall candles, which rested in thin spires that rose from each corner of the sarcophagus. He tapped the point of his sword against it, and determined that it was hollow.
Hollow, yes, but was it occupied?
The lid was strange in that it formed a bowl, the interior of which was deeply stained, and the deepest part of the bowl was perforated. Marcus guessed that the stains were blood, and supposed that victims were brought here and their veins opened before their bodies were tossed into the bowl, where their life-fluids would drain inside. He saw nothing that could tell him what happened to the bodies afterward.
The squire saw no other option. He pressed his shoulder against the side of the sarcophagus’ lid, and pushed with all of his considerable might. The lid was unmoving at first, but eventually gave way, sliding with the horrid screech of metal on metal. Marcus pushed the lid away entirely, and it clattered to the stones deafeningly as he danced away with his sword at the ready for whatever was inside.
And something did lie inside.
It had the shape of a man, but its proportions were Herculean, even to the point that Marcus would seem insubstantial beside it. It was tall, very tall, and broad to match. Its body was hairless, but the paladin could discern little of its finer features because it was entirely drenched in blood both fresh and putrid. That it was a demon, Marcus had no doubt: it was the entity the paladins had sensed ever since entering Farshire, and now that it was released from its sarcophagus the wave of infernal energy was almost enough to make the squire swoon.
And then it opened its eyes.
Marcus shouted and sprung up onto the sarcophagus, hoisting his sword up overhead and bringing the point down toward the prone beast’s heart. The demon raised one hand to defend itself, and the paladin’s sword pierced the giant’s palm. It gasped in pain, but its palm was thick enough to stop the sword from finding its gargantuan chest. The demon pushed with all of its might, and sent Marcus through the air and away from the sarcophagus.
Marcus landed heavily on the floor near the crevice he had entered through, but sprang to his feet swiftly. He watched as the demon struggled out of its sarcophagus, and it swayed unsurely on its trunk-legs. It seemed drunk or half-asleep, and it had difficulty both standing and removing the sword from its palm.
It had not been prepared to awaken, that much was clear.
The demon tossed the bloodied sword aside and reached into the sarcophagus, retrieving a strange mace from therein, and then the monster turned and lurched desperately toward the paladin. Such insecurity in the giant was both heartening and frightening: it was not prepared for a fight, true, but its size and weight and incredible strength could not be denied. Even as disoriented as it was, the fiend was deadly and its desperation made it all the deadlier.
And now it was armed, whereas Marcus was not.
The monster brought its mace to bear in a powerful swing, which the squire avoided by ducking low. The mace met the stone wall of the room with a brutal impact, creating a deep crater and sending debris crumbling to the ground. Marcus lunged forward from his crouch, making it past the demon and retrieving his sword from the ground. He turned and took an aggressive stance, and his eyes burned in the dull light of the chamber.
The beast did not hesitate. It lurched forward, raising its mace overhead again, but it stumbled in its charge and Marcus capitalized. He rushed forward and drove his sword into the demon’s stomach, and then pushed the whole weight of his body into the stab so that the sword sank deep. Marcus shoved his shoulder into his foe, driving the giant back until it collapsed across its sarcophagus.
The demon’s breathing was ragged, and it did not attempt to stand again. Marcus watched it suffer for a long moment, worried it would rally its strength and rise again, but it didn’t. The paladin retrieved the demon’s mace, and examined it closely. It was not a tool of infernal design, he judged, but it was definitely supernatural. It was a little more than two and a half feet long and entirely metallic, though what kind of metal Marcus could not say. Its head was large and flanged, but despite its considerable weight seemed to be hollow.
To the paladin’s amazement, he found that the Light could be fed into it just as it could be fed into a living thing, and when he allowed the Source to flow through him and into the mace, the flanged head ignited in a burst of hellfire so that it resembled a metal torch of holy fire.
So armed, Marcus climbed the sarcophagus and stood over the fallen demon, which turned its eyes away from the burning mace and groaned deeply.
“Thank you for the toy,” Marcus said. “Last words?”
The demon sneered through its mask of dried blood. Its lips did not move, but its voice filled the room and everything vibrated with its tones. It said, “Your victory is a minor one, slave. You have only postponed my ascendance to the material plane and angered my allies. You will suffer untold afflictions before I rise again, though it shall not be long. We will not meet again.”
“On that,” Marcus said, “we agree.”
And then he brought the mace down on the demon’s head over and over savagely, until it was well and truly dead.
The sun rose over Farshire. It was the weakest sunlight anyone in the town could remember, but it was the same all over the county. In Rirodev they shielded their eyes when they came out of their shacks in the morning, and by midday the people were doing without that once-necessary extra layer of rags. Beta Tasski spent the morning tilling old fields, and by afternoon a handful of villagers joined her – out of boredom, they said.
The weather heralded happy times for three farms, where young people thought forever lost returned to their families, traumatized and thin but alive. For the other farms, the strange brightness allowed a bittersweet joy: they had lost much but now, somehow, they knew there had been an end to such losses.
Marcus Book and Anya Shea were chased out of Farshire around ten in the morning, after they admitted to burning down the abandoned church. Their questions about Alexander Farkus fell on deaf ears then, and they camped outside the town limits for a week before their supplies were thin and they were forced to move on. The farmers offered no more succor than the townspeople, and so the paladins left Farshire County and turned their carriage southeast. Anya vowed to return when the people finished sifting through the ruins of the church. She hoped that they would recognize the truth.
Marcus did not say so, but his hopes were more conservative.
*
Two slight figures moved through the charred ruin of the church. The taller of the two motioned for the shorter, and discovered a small hole in the debris through which the pair crawled. Once they emerged into the buried staircase, the taller figure produced an extinguished torch and lit it. They removed their hoods, and revealed themselves as a pair of women. The shorter was the girl that had met Marcus Book in the bakery some weeks before. The taller was a woman of remarkable beauty, with very straight, very long black hair, full black-painted lips, and eyes that shimmered red in the torchlight. The tall woman was very, very pale.
The pair descended into the cavern that had been beneath the Farshire church, which was dark and cold and empty now. They discovered the body of Olav Krodt near the entrance to the cavern. The shorter woman knelt beside the body, and gently kissed its cold forehead.
“Goodbye, Father,” she whispered.
“Come,” the pale woman said.
They went immediately to the crevice at the back of the cavern, and the pale woman squeezed through first. She lifted her torch to reveal the body of the fallen colossus, and she sighed in relief.
As the smaller girl watched, the pale woman lit the four candles attached to the sarcophagus with her torch. She then handed the torch to the girl, who held it high to observe what happened next. The pale woman produced a simple dagger and a chalice, and proceeded to draw long cuts in the fallen demon’s skin. Viscous black blood oozed from the wounds, and the pale woman collected it in the chalice. When it was filled to the brim, she drank from it deeply. She repeated this process twice more before she dropped the chalice.
The pale woman swallowed audibly, and her veins stood out like delicate black lines drawn on the porcelain-white of her face. Her eyes shimmered orange-red in the torchlight, and her lower lip and chin were shiny and black – coated in the demon’s cold blood.
“Now, girl,” the pale woman said. “Tell me everything you learned about this ‘Brotherhood.’”
Requested spoils:
The Hellfire Torch – Marcus Book retrieved this flanged mace from the nascent arch-devil beneath the Farshire church. The mace is a little more than two and a half feet long and is entirely metallic, forged of an alloy of damascus and steel. Its handle is wrapped in tough old leathers. The flanged head of the mace is heavy but hollow. It is unique in that the wielder can channel supernatural energy through it. In Marcus’ case, this means that the head of the mace ignites in hellfire for as long as he channels the Light through it.
The Price of Peace
Hello, Amen! I will be judging your thread “The Price of Peace” today, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, or would just like to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me. I’m available over PM and generally on AIM as well, if you have that. This was a good thread overall, although it did lag a bit at times, and I’d like to see where you go with this character in the future. Anyways, on with the judgment!
Continuity (7)
No complaints here, really. Everything was adequately explained, sufficient backstory was given to understand the characters motivations, and it all fit together. Nicely done. The only thing is that you have a tendency towards infodumps…but that’s really discussed in the Pacing category below.
Setting (5)
Sometimes your settings were excellent, and sometimes they were fairly dull. The church with the cultists and the bodies and everything really brought this up, because other than that things were somewhat bland. You do a good job of setting the scene and describing a setting at first, but remember to keep interacting with the setting as a scene goes on. You paint the backdrop of the story well, but I’d like to see you go a step beyond that.
Pacing (3)
Ah…pacing. This is your major problem, I think. At points the thread simply did not capture my attention. In some places it dragged on far too long with descriptions and the like, and in other places things happened abruptly with little explanation or foreshadowing. You also tend to give large blocks of information rather than trying to weave it into the story. For instance, in the third post you introduce all your characters with a block of bland text describing them. Not a good idea, you should try introducing characters in a much more fluid and natural fashion. I cannot emphasize this enough: show, don’t tell! In some places you had a lot of telling, and it negatively impacted the story as a whole. You might want to try reading things out loud to yourself. That’s something I recommend a lot, because it really does help you tell which parts of the thread drag on and which fly by too quickly.
Dialogue (4)
Similarly to your setting, the dialogue was (at times) just bland. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exceptional either. Another thing that negatively impacted this score was the almost monologue-style speeches the NPCs gave at a few points—namely Olav and Beta. It became kind of obvious that you were just using the character’s dialogue to facilitate another infodump…which is fine, but just try to make it seem a little more natural. On the other hand, your dialogue in some places really excelled. I enjoyed the conversation between Marcus and the girl in the bakery a lot, although Marcus did sound a bit like he was giving a speech about his job at points. I know that you have the potential to write compelling dialogue, so just give that a bit of extra effort and you should be great.
Action (7)
Well done. Your action was always clearly described and befitting of your characters. The only thing that really disappointed me was the climactic battle. It seemed too easy, I guess, for a climax? The battle with the monster in the forge was more dramatic and intense, and supposedly that was a much “lesser” demon I think. However, you did a very good job of characterizing Marcus through action, which I would like to compliment you on. The battle with the peasants, for instance, was brutal but really engaging and developed his character.
Persona (7)
Persona is an area that you seemed particularly strong in. You did a good job of characterizing through action and dialogue, and as a result, your characters personalities came off strong. Marcus had some amount of internal struggle over the clash between his apparent lust for violence and wish to be “good,” while not really knowing what that entailed. The extra points I gave you in Wild Card are sort of related to this. Your characters acted believably and in a three-dimensional fashion. I think you would be even stronger in this category if your dialogue and action and the rest of your writing was stronger.
Mechanics (8)
Your basic knowledge of mechanics is solid, nothing to say here really. Some more complicated construction probably wouldn’t hurt, and remember to vary your sentence length.
Technique (5)
While your basic mechanics are good, I didn’t see much advanced technique at all. Stuff like foreshadowing, metaphors, and other literary techniques add a lot of zest to a thread and draw the reader further in (and just make things more interesting.) You’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to try and show off more complex skill. I’m sure you’re capable of it; it just takes a little bit more effort.
Clarity (7)
Your writing is very clear, and I think this is also a strong point for you.
Wild Card (7)
I liked that you didn’t play the paladins as straight-up goody-goodies—they were morally ambiguous, and even vaguely evil at times. The bad guys were evil, but almost understandable. They weren’t just after chaos or destruction or power, but they wanted to create civilization out of wilderness—almost a noble goal, if their tactics were misguided. On the other hand, your NPCs were a bit predictable at times. I predicted from the first time he was mentioned that Olav would be evil. No real shock when he turned out to be. Same goes for the girl in the bakery.
Still, it was good. The grue was pitiful and almost tragic. You also had a pretty cool almost low-fantasy vibe at times, where your supposedly morally pure characters were surrounded and almost tainted by a gritty and dark atmosphere around them. I definitely enjoyed this thread, and I think you have a huge amount of potential, if you can just add in a bit more excitement, complicated technique, and maybe make some parts a bit less bland.
Total Score: 60! Congratulations!
Amen gains 815 experience and 180 gold!
I see no problem with approving your spoils, but I reduced your gold received slightly as compensation. Have fun swinging that mace around. :p
Zook Murnig
04-11-10, 08:19 PM
EXP and GP added!
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