Authors: Tim Akers
“Oh, enough… fine. What do you think of that, Deadface? Do gheists fear such a foolish thing as smoke?”
Sir Volent had spent this time on one knee. He didn’t mind, as there was less of the pungent smoke near the floor. At his lord’s question he stood and spared the priests a glance.
“Knowledge of such things is beyond me, my lord,” he answered. His voice, much like his face, was still and soft around the edges. The limited movement of his lips gave his words a hollow sound. “If the holy men of Cinder say it is so, then I accept their word. They have always been faithful to a certain kind of honesty.”
Halverdt smiled, but the priests looked distinctly uncomfortable. With a nod, Halverdt dismissed them and turned his attention to Sir Volent. The priests crept out, making holy signs as they retreated into the shadows. One of the priests paused at the door, the hood of his robe pulled tight to his head. Volent didn’t recognize the man, and he thought he knew all of Halverdt’s pet priests. The priest’s face appeared briefly, shaded by the hood. Sharp features, dark hair and, surprisingly, the pagan ink across his cheeks. Volent was about to stop the man when suddenly he was gone, retreating into the hallway without a sound.
“You think I waste my time with them, don’t you?” Halverdt asked when the holy men were gone. He stood and stared toward his knight-marshal, awaiting the answer.
“It is not my place to say, my lord, nor is it why you called for me.” Volent paused, considering. “I would not speak against the church. Nor would you.”
“Nor would I, indeed,” Halverdt answered, smiling. “But I don’t think they’re listening now, Henri. You may relax.”
Volent made no move to relax, nor was he tense. He just stood there, his hands at his waist, his head slightly bowed. Halverdt laughed, his voice booming through the smoke-filled room.
“Always the lively one, my friend,” he said. “Always the jester.” Volent tilted his head in acknowledgement.
“The vow knight who just left, my lord. Is she the one who rode against the gheist?” Volent asked.
“Sir Elsa LaFey, yes. She rescued that fool Blakley child and then sought to destroy the god. To an unsatisfying result, if you ask me.”
“She wasn’t able to destroy the demon?” Volent asked.
“No, but she wounded it, and drove it away. It took flight, and she wasn’t able to keep up.”
“It escaped?” Volent said. “You have to travel fast to outrun the sun.”
“Travel fast or be the night, eh?” Halverdt asked with a twisted grin. “But that isn’t why I have summoned you, either.”
“If the gheists aren’t reason enough, then I worry at your purpose.”
“More than gheists haunt my forests, Henri. Peasants haunt my forests. Peasants and pagans. You know how they are—put on a black mask and some antlers, rape some women, burn the grain that’s meant to keep your family alive during the winter. Idiots.” Halverdt leaned against his throne, his head tilted to one side. For a moment, the duke of Greenhall looked as if he’d been hanged and was twisting on the wire, like some snared rabbit. Volent shook the image off. When Halverdt continued, his voice was far away. “They don’t need their gods to ruin my mood, do they?”
“No, my lord,” Volent answered as quickly as his numb lips would allow. He wanted to shake Halverdt out of this mood. The duke was dangerous when he was melancholy. Even to a favored servant.
“No, but something useful has come of it. You have heard of the matter in Gardengerry?”
“A group of pagans attacked the city’s doma. Killed the priests, the celestes, and disappeared into the night. Took the bodies with them, if the reports can be believed,” Volent answered. “Did Sir LaFey think this attack had something to do with that?”
“Something, indeed. Everything.” Halverdt paced around his simple throne, hands clasped behind his back. His cloak, heavily embroidered and nearly thick as a tapestry, dragged on the ground behind him. The cloak had been a gift from the holy Gaston LeBrieure, celestriarch of the church. Halverdt wore it as a symbol of his piety, and a ward against the shadows in the corners and the pagans at his gate. “Did you pass the bodies on your way in? Did you count their number?”
“A dozen, perhaps? Maybe more?”
“Yes.” Halverdt held up his fingers and began counting them off. “The five fools of House Blakley. The scout who originally sounded the alarm. Grandieu and his horse are gone or not yet found. So who are the others?” Halverdt stalked closer, a mad look in his eye. “Do you know?”
“No, my lord.”
“Priests, celestes, and pagans.”
“The dead of Gardengerry?” Volent asked. Even in his dead tone, there was a hint of surprise. “How is that possible?”
“It is possible because there is more to the story than the church has been telling. That vow knight just gave me what she knew, but only if I swore to keep it quiet. The pagans who bloodied Gardengerry also summoned a gheist in the doma—it’s the only answer. Few survived the attack on the town. Gardengerry is a ruin, I am told, but a farmer saw the demon as it fled. The church was quick to discredit him, but the man claimed something came out of the floor of the temple, and took the pagans and their victims with it.”
“And then it came here?”
Halverdt nodded. Volent paced around the fire pit, unable to squint to keep the smoke out of his eyes. Tears streamed down his nerveless cheeks.
“But why?” he asked.
Halverdt shrugged. “The church knows nothing more about it—or they will say nothing more. I think it was just passing through. Heading north to find its pagan followers, perhaps.”
Halverdt looked troubled, dragging his feet until he stopped beside the throne. Again he leaned against the stone frame, his hand resting on the carved gargoyle at its height. The carvings pre-dated House Halverdt, were older even than the Tenerran tribesmen who lived here before the last crusade had driven them out. Much of Halverdt’s realm was scavenged from that forgotten past, buildings and ruins bent to the will of the Suhdrin conquerors and their Celestial church.
“Your land is full of trouble, my lord,” Volent said. “The church trusts you to protect the faithful south, and that says much.”
“My land is full of rebels!” Halverdt snapped, stepping forward, his face momentarily distorted in rage before he gathered himself. Turning away, he returned to his seat on the throne. “And pagans. And gheists. And
that
is why you are here.”
“I am no hunter of demons,” Volent answered. “You’ll want a priest, my lord. Knights of the winter sun, and inquisitors to hunt the witches to their den.”
“The church will do its duty, I’m sure. It’s not the gheists I want you to worry about, Volent.” Halverdt twisted his hands together, tapping his knuckle against his chin. “The church has asked for my patience, they have asked for my loyalty, and they have asked for my time. I have given all of it that I can. These Tenerrans bend the knee by day, and sharpen their knives at night.”
“What would you have of me?” Volent asked.
“The church will send inquisitors and knights of the vow to destroy the beast, but there will be more. There will be others—an unending stream of gheists until the pagans who worship them are put down. The inquisition will question the peasants, search the forests.” The duke waved a hand dismissively. “They may find something… in time.”
“My lord has no patience for that?”
“Your lord does not,” Halverdt said as he turned to grin at Volent. “Your lord does not require patience. Your lord has you.”
Sir Volent sketched a bow and touched his forehead.
“I live to serve, my duke,” he said. “What would you have me do?”
“The pagans who did this are dead, laid out like cattle in my courtyard, but they had families. They had companions, other pagans who might look favorably on what happened in Gardengerry. What happened here last night. The inquisition will ask its questions, separate the guilty from the innocent, and serve their cold revenge.” Halverdt knotted his hands together, worrying the hem of his cloak. “I do not wish to wait for that.”
“The demon must be traveling to its faithful,” Volent offered. “Where it goes, we will find pagan blood.”
“Yes, pagan blood that you must spill,” Halverdt said. “I have no doubt that it was drawn here by those Tenerran bastards in the tourney camp. It’s certainly no coincidence that the demon arrived the same day Blakley hung his banner outside my walls. It’s like a godsdamned siege.” The duke shivered despite the heat of the room and his thick cloak. His voice became murky. “Perhaps the Blakley boy was meant to draw it out and tame it. Still, I cannot act against them, not yet.” His eyes cleared, and Halverdt turned his attention back to Volent. “The gheist will lead you to its witches.”
“What have your priests said? Where should I start?”
“To hells with what my priests say. Start where you will, ask whomever you must. Bleed your way to an answer, Sir Volent, but don’t come back here until this is solved.”
“Care should be taken, my lord, to not upset the common folk…”
“The common folk can go to the quiet with the priests, and pray their way to heaven for all I care!” Halverdt shouted. He banged the flat of his palm on his throne, swirling the thick smoke of the air. “The common folk hide these murderers. They come to the doma on high day and pray to gheists the rest of the week. I will tolerate them no longer!”
“My lord, I think…”
“Damn you, man! Am I your lord or your bar mate, to care what you think? Find these men. Kill them! When the inquisitors of the damn church set foot in Greenhall, I will throw the heads of these pagans at their feet.” He adjusted his cloak, his hands quivering. “Go, and do not return until my vengeance is settled.”
Sir Volent bowed and backed away, not turning until he was by the door. The duke sat on his ancient throne, gnawing on his knuckle and staring blankly into the smoky, flameless fire at the center of the room. Clouds of gray and blue billowed around him, like a vision in the fog.
* * *
Volent went to gather his men. There was no reason to delay, no need to plan. A mission of this sort was second nature to him. When he rode out of Greenhall with his contingent of knights, the herald at Volent’s side flew two flags; the three acorns of House Halverdt, above a cross in green and gold, and his own sigil, smaller. It was a field of black and a mask, white, shot through with lightning.
Like a mask of ice, shattering.
G
WEN WAS FALLING
behind her pack. She could hear their baying just beyond a copse of brambles, but she couldn’t get her courser to muscle through the prickly shrubs and into the field beyond. It was driving her mad.
“Through, you ox! Through!” she yelled, kicking her horse on. “You damned broken nag, what would you do if we were pursued?” Missy, a big dapple-gray mare that was neither a broken nag nor an ox, was having none of it. She trotted along the muddy path, sniffing doubtfully at the brambles.
While Gwen was urging her horse to do something it was never going to do, the dozen riders of her hunting party caught up. They were all riding much larger horses, destriers, all in full barding to match their riders’ plate-and-half. It was hardly the sort of thing to be wearing as you crashed through the forest, but the nature of the hunt called for it. Their column bristled with the dusty red metal of bloodwrought spears. Other than Gwen, the only rider in less than full armor was Frair Lucas. The priest seemed strangely at his ease, despite the danger the gheist presented.
“My lady, perhaps we have followed this trail long enough,” Sir Merret said from the head of the column. “Any god able to manifest so close to the Allfire must be too weak to bother with.”
“Or too powerful to be faced,” one of the men grumbled.
“Do you find your faith lacking, sirs?” Gwen asked. “Or are you simply tired of being in the saddle? Is that too much of a task for you?”
“My lady—” Merret started again. He was older than the rest, and had been in her father’s service ever since Gwen could remember. He was one of the few Suhdrin knights in Adair’s service.
The rest were all Tenerran, men her father had personally raised to titled rank from the various tribal villages that dotted his humble domain. The only thing that marked Sir Merret as different was his constant complaint about the dullness of Tenerran food, and his willingness to correct the baron’s daughter. Not that either habit got him anywhere.
Gwen interrupted him before he was able to get any further in his excuses.
“I am sworn to protect these lands from the pagan gods,” she said. “Not to protect them until it gets to be a dangerous business, or to run from the whispers of what a gheist might be without laying my own eyes on it.” She gave him a stern look. “I will carry out my duty.”
“Assuming you’re able to defeat the demon of this bush,” Frair Lucas said quietly. He was smiling and distracted, his eyes wandering from the company of knights to the forest around them.
What is he hiding
, Gwen wondered,
behind that indifferent expression?
“Frair, you are on this hunt as a courtesy to the church,” Sir Merret snapped, pulling his horse level with the priest’s tired-looking mare. “It’s not your place to insult my lord’s heir. The role of huntress is an ancient and honored tradition in the north. You would do well to offer the lady the respect she has earned.”
“I’m sure her place as the daughter of Lord Adair has nothing to do with her place as huntress,” the frair said, without either malice or conceit. Still, the whole company bristled.
“What are you implying?” Gwen said stiffly.
“Nothing. Simply that I have not seen you face the threats a huntress usually has to face.” He smiled. “And I try never to judge someone until I’ve had their weight.”
“How kind of you,” Gwen said sharply.
“Not kind—just Cinder’s nature.” Lucas raised a finger, tilting his head toward the sky. “A moment, please.”
“This is a dangerous task we’re about, Frair. If you’d rather be having a theological discussion back at my father’s castle—”
“Honestly, just one moment of silence,” Lucas said. “I think…”