Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 5: Chapter 22: Ire and Intrigue

Our return to the city coincided with an onset of rain, and distant black clouds threatening worse. True summer was only a bare handful of days away, and with it would come summer storms.

My powers warn me when danger from beyond my homeland’s shores is near. I could feel a rancorous wind in the north, though it had not yet arrived to trouble the capital. It would be full of heat from warmer lands, ready to drive away the last vestiges of winter’s chill.

Somehow, I knew that long winter would not loosen its grip easily.

I tried to put the troubled sky out of my thoughts as Hendry and Emma followed me back to the palace. As I went, I thought about what needed to be done, and what I should say to the Emperor. My companions kept their own silences as we moved through the streets.

Catrin remained at the inn, making me promise I would return before the fighting started. I wanted to see her again. And I dreaded it.

Churning thunder guided us to the Fulgurkeep through streets teeming with people. Another batch of knightly retinues had arrived, bringing crowds out to greet them and plead for news from afar. A fever seemed to hang over the city, fear and anticipation boiling into an anxious flavor.

Navigating through the mess took time, and every wasted moment frustrated me.

“What are you going to tell the Emperor?” Emma asked me as we cut through some alleys to avoid the throngs.

I still hadn’t decided, and had no answer to give her. She must have sensed my mood, because she fell quiet.

It emerged from the gap between a church tower and a court hall, rising near tall as both. The three of us all tensed, and I suspected my young followers had the same thought I did — that another storm ogre had appeared in the capital.

Indeed, the looming figure which stepped into our path was huge as one of the western beasts. It stood twenty-five feet high, wore enough steel to arm a platoon of knights, and enough cloth to warm a village through winter. A split triangle of steel crowned the bright helm, the Y shaped opening in the mask beneath revealing two dim blue eyes.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Hendry took a step back, while Emma lifted her chin defiantly in her habitual refusal to show fear. I stood my ground, wary but not immediately threatened. Not easy, considering the air had shifted just from the act of the towering warrior standing up and taking two steps.

The dwarf giant reached up, plucked off his ceremonial helm to let a cascade of mountain silver hair fall over a kindly face, and inclined his head.

“Well met, Ser Headsman. I have heard some tales of you these past weeks.”

No doubt he recognized me by my accoutrements, which I made no effort to hide. The voice was powerful, pushed into the air by lungs that probably weighed more than I did, yet surprisingly soft.

I studied the crest of the helm a moment, and a matching insignia worked into a badge pinned to a strap across the figure’s chest. Many more medals adorned that chest, all large as shields. His armor was like polished silver, reflecting my face back at me and making the rain on it gleam.

The dwarf was a knight. Not only that, but I suspected I knew where from. I inclined my own head, letting some rainwater fall down my brow. “It is an honor to meet a Warden of the Gate.”

Hendry’s eyes widened, while Emma pursed her lips.

“I am Ser Nimryd,” the dwarf said. “Here to represent the defenders of Aureia’s Gate in the Emperor’s tournament.” His voice softened into something more fragile. “And to report the deaths of my comrades.”

“They were set upon by two storm ogres some days ago,” the Royal Steward said in an unusually somber tone. “Likely remnants from the incursion last month.”

Markham was quiet a minute, his gray eyes scanning the report laid out on the table in front of him. It included a list of names, each of them belonging to someone lost in the attack. We stood in his small council chamber, listening to the storm rumble outside.

“And what of Roland?” Markham asked.

“King Roland and his retinue have yet to return from their hunt,” the Steward replied smoothly. “We’ve received no communication, but our last report had him near Ottershall five days ago. That is perhaps thirty miles south of the city, and well away from any path the delegation from Idhir would have taken.”

“Tell me the moment we hear from him,” Markham told his advisor. “That will be all.”

The Steward bowed, nodded to me, then left to attend some other business. That left me alone as I’d ever been with the Emperor of the Accorded Realms. The Twinbolt Knight loomed near the door, silent and watchful.

Markham waited several minutes, and did not look at me when he spoke. “Where were you?”

I considered my answer a moment before speaking. “It is hard to explain, Your Grace.”

An edge of steel creeped into the high king’s voice. “Do so anyway.”

I had yet even to check in on my team, having been summoned to this meeting the moment Markham became aware I’d returned to the castle. The Idhiran I’d met at the gate waited in the court below, the upper halls unable to accommodate his size.

“I was investigating the attacks,” I said. “I got a lead, and it brought me to a place I didn’t expect, one I couldn’t easily leave.”

I ended up telling him all of it, leaving out only that the contact who’d led me to Count Laertes was a crime lord and a brothel owner, and the part about the vampire’s connection to the Traitor Magi. I didn’t want to make it harder than needed to get him to swallow the story.

Markham paced over to the fireplace during my account, holding a goblet of wine in his hand as though it were a talisman against evil. He drained the remnants in one swallow when I’d finished, threw his head back, and sighed.

“God save us from wizards.”

I could hardly disagree.

“First my wife’s spymaster, now this.” He turned to glower at me, clutching his cup as though he intended to crush it. “They are schemers who care nothing for the laws of mortal men. How can you trust this… what did you say he was, some kind of revenant?”

“A vampire, I think.” I shrugged. “He didn’t exactly confirm it, Your Grace, and there are so many variety of undead…”

Markham waved my hedging off. “My point remains. What if he was deceiving you? I’ve heard members of your order have the ability to tell when someone is lying. Did you use this power on him?”

“I did not,” I admitted. “I’m not even sure it would work on someone strong as him, and he would have taken it as an insult. I can only go on his word, Your Grace. If he was lying, it’s an elaborate one, and if he isn’t…”

“So in short,” Markham said, “Prince Calerus intends to co-opt my tournament to forge some terrible weapon for an unknown but likely devastating purpose. He and his sister are behind these recent attacks, or their father is. You don’t know what this sorcery will end up looking like or what they plan to do with it, but whatever their plan it will end with a new war, one they expect to win. Have I described the situation well enough, Ser Alken?”

His brusque tone held an edge of danger in it. I stood straight and nodded. “That is the short of it, Your Grace.”

Markham shook his head, his eyes sliding to the fire. “It sounds ludicrous, but it’s exactly the sort of thing the Recusants did back during the war. It sounds just like what happened to Elfhome. I will not allow my city to die for some madman’s scheme.”

Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d expected to need more convincing to get Markham to take my story seriously, but he was a veteran of the Fall same as I.

Lifting the still-intact fingers of his left hand to point at me, the Emperor spoke in a dangerous voice. “I cannot cancel the tournament, before you even suggest it.”

I just bowed my head, having known he wouldn’t. There was far too much political and economic investment put into the whole thing, and Markham couldn’t afford that blow to his reputation when the peace was still so young.

He started to pace. “I can’t just send those two brats packing, either. There are still rats and wolves who’d side with Hasur scurrying around my feet. Fuck!”

Markham chucked his goblet, a small fortune in silver and gemstones, onto the floor in an almost petulant display.

I had never seen him this openly angry. Then again, I’d rarely seen him without a gaggle of advisors to stifle him. Both the Steward and the Royal Cleric were attending other business.

He also just learned that an entire retinue of knights and ambassadors here from the oldest realm in the Accord were slaughtered on the roads of his own kingdom. I imagined he wasn’t having a very good day.

“We must simply not allow Prince Calerus to win, father.”

I turned to the fourth person remaining in the room with us. Small and slim, with his father’s dark brown hair and his mother’s delicate features, Malcolm Forger possessed serious green eyes discordant with his eight years. Many children of the high nobility matured quickly, the strong aura surrounding them from birth providing an uncanny wisdom for their age.

Markham calmed at the reminder his son was in the room with us. “It’s not that simple, boy. The Condor won’t leave things to chance.”

“I’ve never heard any stories about Calerus,” I said. “Is he a reputed warrior, Your Grace?”

Markham considered a moment. “He would have been too young to fight in the war. Any experience he might have, he would have gotten it since then. No doubt he’s spent his whole life training for this…”

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He met my eyes. “I don’t know. We should assume he is dangerous.” Markham snorted. “As if I needed a reminder. I will make sure anyone set against him in the lists is made aware of the danger, and we will stay on guard for cheating.”

Prince Malcolm frowned. “Father, if we are aware that the Vykes are behind these recent murders, why must we simply let it pass? There must be justice.”

“We are in the game of realms, boy.” Malcolm moved to the war table and sat. “You won’t find much justice in it. We have no proof, just Ser Alken’s word. I trust it, but…”

He trailed off, glancing at me. I didn’t need to finish the statement for him. We could not tilt the realms against Talsyn on the word of a reclusive wizard. Few trust them in even the best of times.

I debated asking, then decided there was no harm. “Your Grace, did you know about the power this tournament would conjure? How it might affect those who compete in it?”

I realized only then that it troubled me, the idea my homeland’s leader had engineered such a thing.

Markham remained quiet a while. Then, with a slow nod he said, “I had some idea of what might happen. It was Lias Hexer’s idea, originally. He found records of some ancient rituals performed by our ancestors, and counseled me to prepare this tourney. He believed it would help shore up our loss of strength after the Fall.”

The Emperor sighed, looking tired as I felt. “He was supposed to be here to observe it and make sure everything went according to plan. He believed there might be unforeseen problems with so much magic concentrated in one place, said he needed to keep things stable.”

Lacing his fingers together he added, “I have a whole team of clericons paying attention to that now, but I doubt any of them have the wizard’s expertise.”

The tournament being Lias’s idea startled me. It did not, after a some thought, surprise me.

“You’ve had no contact from him since that incident with the Grand Prior?” Markham asked me.

Though it had killed me to do it, I’d reported to Markham what my old friend had done. I’d wanted to talk to Rosanna about it, but she hadn’t allowed a private conversation since before that night everything had changed. And they needed to be warned.

Even after everything he had done, I still felt that reactive loyalty. I had still wanted to keep that confrontation to myself. I had chosen the wiser course.

“No, Your Grace.”

Markham stood. “Laessa Greengood’s trial by combat will take place the first morning of the tournament. There will be three days of fighting, and by the end of the last day we will have a champion.”

He stepped around the table to address me directly. “Can you take this demon out of play before that? Make sure it can’t be used for whatever the twins are planning?”

Inhaling, I bowed my head. “I may have found a way to locate the creature, yes.”

I did not mention Catrin.

As I left the council chamber, I heard the doors open behind me. Turning, I saw two figures step out and approach. I bowed my head as they stopped a short distance away, trying to ignore the looming figure of the Twinbolt Knight and keep my focus on the younger of the pair.

“My prince,” I murmured.

Malcolm Forger studied me a moment, his emotions unreadable. Again, it struck me how those eyes did not belong to someone so young. He should have been struggling to form sentences and clinging to his mother’s skirts, not appraising me with the calculating ambivalence of a young adult.

He reminded me of an elf. They often appeared youthful, for all their ancient knowledge. Tuvon had been like that.

“We have not spoken since my mother introduced my brother and me to you,” Malcolm finally said. “I have been wanting to have a conversation.”

I had much to do, and none of it was trifling enough to wait on a royal child’s whim. Burying my frustration I simply kept my head lowered and my tone polite. “I am at your service, my prince.”

Malcolm’s green eyes, uncannily like his mother’s, narrowed. When he spoke again, his voice seemed more cool. “Yes, I remember you saying that back then too. And yet, you also promised my mother your service. Now you answer to my father.”

The boy lifted his chin. “Who do you serve, Ser Alken? My father? My mother? Yourself?”

I blinked, taken off guard by the suspicion in the boy’s voice. No, not just suspicion. Hostility.

He’s angry, I realized. Because he thought I betrayed his mother? Knowing what he did of our relationship, it probably seemed that way.

He looked and sounded so much like Rosanna in that moment. She had been just like this when we’d been young. Controlled, challenging, stubborn, and suspicious of everyone. Without even thinking about it, I replied to her son the same way I might have to her once.

“Have you not heard, my prince?” I tried for a smile. “I serve the gods.”

Rosanna and I had relied on one another, and she hadn’t been child of an emperor. Malcom’s gaze turned cold.

“I will not be mocked,” he snapped. “And I will have an answer, ser.”

His use of the knightly honorific was a not so subtle reminder of our difference in station, and it ripped me right out of my fit of nostalgia. The Twinbolt hadn’t moved, but remained a looming, eerie presence nearby. I don’t even think I heard breath through his elaborate helm, and like many royal guard it had been fashioned with some enchantment to keep the interior shadowed and anonymous.

Somehow, I got the sense he wasn’t watching me. The helm was slightly turned, as though the knight were listening to some far off noise.

I bowed deeper, turning my attention back to Malcolm. “Forgive me, my prince.”

He waited with a stubbornly set jaw, and I realized he wouldn’t let this go. His question had not been rhetorical.

I decided for a half truth. “I serve the realms, my prince.”

He watched me for six long, uncomfortable breaths, then turned. “We will see. Good day to you, Ser Alken.”

He and his bodyguard departed then. I stood there until Emma stepped up to my side. She’d been hiding in the shadows between two statues, using a bit of her Briar magic to keep watch on me.

“That was unsettling,” she noted. “I thought he’d have his guard draw on you for a moment.”

“He’s angry on behalf of his mother.” I turned and started walking.

The image of my queen hidden away in her lonely tower above the sea flashed through my mind. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one to understand her in this gray northern land, after all.

“Don’t worry,” Emma quipped. “I had you covered from the dire princeling.”

“The Twinbolt saw you,” I told her.

“He did not!” Emma snapped, affronted.

“He did,” I insisted in a light voice. He hadn’t been distracted at all. He’d seen my squire, even while she’d been concealed by her glamour. A dangerous man, if it was a man under that shadowed helm.

“Let’s check on our team,” I told her. “Maybe they will have something useful for us.”

I hadn’t expected to lose an entire night on my errand at the Backroad Inn. As I navigated the winding corridors of the Fulgurkeep, a thought struck me as I remembered what had occupied so much time. How had the Keeper of the Backroad known about the delegation from Idhir being attacked before Ser Nimryd, the last survivor, had arrived?

I couldn’t guess at the resources held by the immortal information broker. I still wasn’t even certain he and Laertes hadn’t conspired to set up that meeting.

“Explain it to me again,” I demanded with a patience I did not feel. “All of it.”

The blunt features of Mallet, my recruit from the militia, twisted into an angry scowl. “Nuffin’ more to be said. We’re fucked.”

When I stared at him levelly, the stocky man shifted a step and added, “Ser.”

I stood in the main chamber of my tower headquarters on the Fulgurkeep’s wave-battered northern cliffs. My new subordinates arrayed themselves around me, and they were a sore sight. Penric had a nasty bruise swelling up one half of his face, the result of a broken nose, and Beatriz had one arm in a sling. The nobleman, Kenneth, looked more disheveled than I remembered him but had otherwise gotten off with a cut lip.

The cleric stood off to the side, clutching his holy amulet in tight fingers and murmuring to himself. He looked fine, physically, but his eyes were unfocused and his prayers had a manic edge.

It took me a moment to recall his name. Emil.

I scanned the room, catching a brief glimpse of my squire lurking near the door with her usual bored indifference. Kenneth looked amused by the whole thing, as though the group were getting lectured for some mischief done on a drunken night. Beatriz looked like she hadn’t slept since I’d last seen her, though her brown eyes carried a defiant glint.

Instead of demanding elaboration from the militiaman, I looked at Penric. He was the oldest of the group, and seemed to be the most level headed.

The archer made an effort to stand straighter, though the motion looked more habitual than respectful. “It was a mess, ser, and no mistake.”

He went over the details one more time, which made more sense without Kenneth’s lax drawl or Mallet’s gruff terseness. As I’d ordered, the group had split up to investigate different leads across the city and gain a clearer picture of the attacks. Kenneth and Beatriz had looked into the alchemical attack that’d targeted a mansion on the Fountain Ward, while Penric and the other two had started with the tavern where a barmaid had stabbed one of the Storm Knights.

Penric’s group had gained little success. The girl who’d shanked Ser Alencourt had allegedly been a quiet, sweet tempered maid who’d lived on the Street of Whistles her whole life. She’d been seventeen, the daughter of a carpenter, and had worked in the tavern for years.

By all accounts, she hadn’t left the city once in her life. Hardly the sort of suspicious character I’d imagine for an assassin. The girl had taken her own life afterward, leaving no explanations.

Kenneth and Beatriz had spoken to watchmen and servants at the manor of the earl whose whole household had been poisoned by gas. They had gained a bit more, finding the device used in the attack tucked away inside the mansion’s cellars. Some sort of alchemical contraption, complicated in design.

They had to describe it to me, because it had been confiscated by House Rathur. This is where things had gone wrong. Once the object of the assassination had been located, relatives of the deceased earl had demanded it be turned over to them. They had their own private investigation going, and wanted the device as evidence.

And they were not the only ones. As my lance had spread their investigation across the city, they kept getting frustrated by servants operating on behalf of one family or another. Penric believed they were mostly private House guard, men-at-arms kept on retainer by the noble families and loyal to those clans. They beat my team to witnesses, confiscated evidence, frustrated us at every opportunity.

Things had escalated, and when both teams had reconnoitered to look in on the death of Elmira Worthy, who’d been poisoned at a gala, other agents had arrived just after them. Beatriz had gotten into a scuffle with two of them, which Kenneth had tried to deescalate. One of the men-at-arms had said something untoward to the woman, and Mallet had broken the man’s teeth for it.

Everyone there had been armed. It could have been much worse, but the nobleman in charge of this rival team of sleuths had stepped in and ordered his people to back off. He’d then ordered my people to leave, and none of them had possessed the authority to challenge him.

“He said it was the Houses who were attacked,” Penric finished in his raspy voice. “And the Houses who would protect their own.”

“Who was this man?” I asked.

The archer frowned, rubbing his swollen jaw in thought. It was Kenneth who piped in with the answer.

“It was Lord Vander,” the handsome nobleman said. “Of House Braeve, if I’m not mistaken.”

Vander Braeve. I bit back a bitter curse. The man had made his distrust and dislike for me clear enough in court. Did he mean to sabotage me?

No. After a moment’s thought, I didn’t think this was personal. The Houses of Urn had always been fractious, distrustful, and proud. It didn’t surprise me that some of them had decided to take matters into their own hands, distrustful of the palace’s interference.

“You did announce yourself?” I asked the whole group. “Told them who you answer to?”

“We did,” Kenneth said without losing his pleasant smile. “But, um…”

He glanced at the others for support. Mallet spoke up with a growling tone that didn’t bother to hide his anger, and his eyes remained fixed on me as he spoke.

“You weren’t here, ser. We had no one to back us up.”

I clenched my jaw, fighting back an angry retort I knew none of them had earned.

Faisa Dance had warned me of this, when she’d mentioned the Cymrinoreans closing their doors to us. And I hadn’t been there to step in as a higher authority. My position was less than a week old, officially. To the whole city, my team would look like a rag-tag band of ne’er do-wells.

More than that, the Accord itself was young, untested, and made up of an enormous confederation of formerly independent and often rival feudal realms. I should have foreseen this, I thought tiredly.

I felt my headache, growing ever since I’d returned to the palace, spike in intensity.

“Perhaps a uniform?” Kenneth suggested helpfully. “Couldn’t hurt. We could make it red!”

When I turned a slow stare on him, he coughed and fell silent. Seeing Emma trying to hold back laughter in the background did little to help my temper.

“And where have you been since yesterday, ser?” Beatriz stared at me with nearly as much hostility as Mallet.

“Running down my own leads,” I said vaguely, too annoyed to be politic about it. After a minute’s consideration, I turned to Penric. He was the only one who hadn’t pissed me off, so far.

“I want you to get a message to House Braeve,” I told him. “Tell them I’d like to meet with Lord Vander at his earliest convenience. Make it clear that I would prefer he inconvenience himself for it.”

Penric snapped out a salute, though his calm, almost drowsy eyes didn’t match the crisp motion. “I’ll have it done.”

If I was going to do this, I’d do this part by the book. The nobility would take me seriously, or I would stop playing nice. I decided to call on House Dance as well, sending Hendry on that errand. Lady Faisa seemed to be my ally, and she was far more powerful than Vander.

I might hate politics, but playing the game badly would get people killed. Catrin was willing to risk her life against a Demon of the Abyss. Next to that, I had no right to be cowed by court intrigue.