Oathbreaker ch. 10.5 - Sworn In Darkness (Patreon)

My rondel came into my hand as I stood. The vampire held no weapons besides his natural ones, and his hands were bare of any gauntlet, the long fingers ending in sharp nails pale and hard as ivory.

“Not going to use your axe?” He asked me in a conversational tone. He was the man I’d seen in town, the one in the bleached cloak and hat. His hat had come off in our tumble, revealing a young, handsome face framed by short hair the color of polished brass.

He wasn’t so pale, in truth. His skin had an amber hue only a shade or two darker than his hair, common across the subcontinent. I wondered why I’d thought of him as pale, and realized it must have been an impression from my powers, warning me of his true nature even from afar.

“That’s a shoddy glamour,” I told him. “I could tell something was off about you a hundred paces away.”

“Is this where we banter before we start the slash and parry?” The man had a distinct highborn accent, definitely a northerner. “I thought you were more the stoic type, if I may be honest.”

Vicar was to my left, and Morgause to my right. The scadumare paced along the side of the clearing, almost invisible against the woodland backdrop at the moonlight’s edge. I could sense the other vampire ghosting through the bushes almost directly behind me.

“Do I know you?” I asked him. He still looked familiar.

The man shrugged and adjusted his white cape, clearing his hands. “We know you, Headsman.”

A branch rustled at my back. The fingers of my free hand flexed as I gathered my will. Heat bloomed in my chest and surged through my limbs, and at the same time the air became very cold so a mist began to form along the ground. The vampire tensed and bared his sharp teeth.

And I heard that sound again, like a day bird trilling.

“You shot my sister,” the aristo said.

My Soul Art manifested, flashing into reality as a long spear such a pale gold it was nearly white. Though bright as the moon above, it seemed to drink the moonlight and make the woods darker. My fingers closed around the construct of aureflame so I held it in one hand and my rondel in the other.

The vampire and I both moved at the same time. The spear gave me reach and the sacred fire of the Alder would cause the undead creature grievous harm, and if he slipped past it then I still had the dagger. As part of the same expenditure of aura, I’d also sheathed the rondel in the same white-gold fire.

I’d not been sitting around at council meetings the whole summer. Every day I’d been training, refining my powers, and negotiating with the assembly of spirits bonded to my magic. Slowly, I was replacing my broken techniques with new ones.

The vampire slipped past the triangular “blade” of the spear, but that was merely decorative. The entire thing was made of pure aura, sharp as a razor and hot enough to blister flesh, and as it passed over the undead knight’s gorget it sliced through it like no natural blade could have. His scarlet eyes widened.

I shoulder-checked him, which would have gotten my shoulder dislocated or broken if I hadn’t reinforced my entire body with aura as well. The shock of impact still hurt and made me grunt, but most of the force passed into the vampire and slammed him to the ground. I stepped over him, twirled the aurespear, then slammed it head-first into his left shoulder, pinning him.

One. I turned to see a shape darting from tree to tree. The other vampire was keeping its distance, dashing about the dense woods to confuse my sight. It moved incredibly fast, blurring with speed in the darkness. I let go of the aurespear, which remained a solid shaft of humming light, leaving the struggling hemophage pinned where he lay. As I stepped clear of him, the second vampire left its cover and blurred across the clearing directly towards me.

“Sidsel, no!” The one I’d already subdued shouted.

I turned, and this time I didn’t bother crafting a complex phantasm. Instead, I allowed that hot-cold power lingering in the air to gather around me like a cloak, so the mist suddenly collapsed inward and rose about the spot I stood. It took on a similar unearthly glow to the spear, then deepened to a sanguine red as it touched my cloak. That redness bloomed outward, ghostfire and blood-tinted miasma burning into the sky so I seemed to stand within a pillar of hell as the second vampire drew up on me.

It was a crude technique, not anything I’d use against a trained sorcerer and something I’d feel hideous using against an ordinary person. It was sheer terror, an outpouring of fear carried through my aura and given visual metaphor by the bonfire of blood. There were the shapes of skulls within it, and fanged helmets like damned knights crawling with living vines.

But these two weren’t sorcerers or common soldiers. They were predators driven by compulsion and instinct, and far more susceptible to this sort of thing.

The second vampire, this one female, skidded to a stop about six paces away and cowered at the sight of my wraith-cloaked form. She let out a small whine like a dog, cringing back.

I lifted my hand and formed another spear in it, this one taking on a red glow. But something in the corner of my vision caught my attention. There was a little bird perched in the boughs of a young spruce at the clearing’s edge. It seemed so innocuous, but something about it… its eyes gleamed like glass.

Because they were glass. Its movements seemed artificial, stiff, and the sound it made was no more natural. It opened its tiny beak and sang like a starling.

Then exploded.

I saw the spark inside its beak, a hidden mechanism clicking and then igniting, and a small sun appeared inside the copse.

My vision went first with the flash, then the shockwave hit me and blew me back. A wave of heat cascaded through the woods. Broken pieces of tree flew everywhere as deadly shrapnel, some hitting me and tearing clothes and skin. I had the wherewithal to cover my face, but then there was just blurring shapes and motion and pain.

“Up,” a voice said what felt like an eternity later but couldn’t have been more than a score or so heartbeats.

I groaned and rolled onto my stomach, and felt warm fur against my right hand. I’d lost my blade in the explosion, and could feel heat and hear the sound of flames.

“Vicar?” I groaned. Then, more emphatically I said, “Ow.”

“You are fine. Superficial wounds and disorientation. You’d best get up.”

I did, begrudgingly, and found the copse aflame. Cinders rained through the air and the young spruce where I’d seen the strange bird was just gone, along with large portions of any tree that’d been near it. The clearing was larger than it had been, and there were smoldering fragments of the trees scattered everywhere.

A bomb. That little bird had been a Marion, a living puppet, with some kind of explosive hidden inside. An assassin.

“There might be more,” I said and grabbed up Vicar to lay him over my shoulders. He settled into place, his glowing red eyes bright as they reflected the burning woods. Morgause was fine, and I placed a hand on her as she drew up beside me. The scadumare was nervous and fretting, ready to leave but not willing to leave me.

“Good girl,” I said and grabbed her reins. My sight landed on the two vampires. The female one was kneeling by the male, who was trapped beneath a large chunk of the spruce and seemed unable to free himself. The other vampire struggled with it, but the fire — a bane to her kind — bit at her hands almost like a living thing, scorching her and making her recoil with a cry of pain.

“This is not the time for misplaced heroism,” Vicar told me.

I ignored him, already striding forward. The female vampire saw me approach and bared her fangs in a snarl. I realized the two were twins, both with the same amber skin and brassy hair. They both wore good steel armor and white cloaks.

The woods weren’t incredibly on fire on second inspection, but I knew there might be more Marions. I reached down without hesitation and grabbed the heavy branch. It took a moment of effort, and the smoldering wood burned my hands, but it wasn’t any worse than my own magic. I lifted it off and freed the trapped vampire.

“Why?” He asked me. He was badly burned and there was a hole in his pauldron where I’d pinned him with the spear. The phantasm had dissipated in the explosion.

Instead of answering, I looked up. Shapes darted above the smoke, almost invisible save where they passed over the face of the moon.

“These birds yours?” I asked.

“Obviously not,” he said, and groaned with pain. His sister — she looked like a female version of him, an identical twin — clearly wanted to approach, but was wary of me.

“Then you get to live for now. Vicar?”

“Yes?” He asked.

“You have permission.” Then to the woman I said, “You might want to cover your head.”

She glared at me, but then flinched back as Vicar lifted his boneless head straight up, drew in a long breath that seemed to cause all the flames to lean in, and spat a mighty plume of hellfire directly into the sky.

It only caught one or two of the birds, but that’s all it needed to do.

I ducked, using my own body to cover the male vampire, and threw my cloak over my head as a series of detonations erupted across the night sky. The shockwaves were less destructive without burning fragments of the forest added, but I still felt the impacts slam down like invisible hammers. I braced myself against the ground, using the pelt and my faerie cloak to shield my skin.

When done, the woods had fallen eerily quiet. There were no more bird or insect noises, only small fires crackling at the edges of the destroyed clearing. My eyes stung from the smoke, but the bombs didn’t seem to have started a forest fire. I had the nearby lake and the humid air to thank for that, I guessed. A few weeks ago when summer was still blazing, and this might have been very bad.

“Are there more?” I asked Vicar.

The devil’s crimson eye darted about rapidly, then froze. “There.”

I turned just as one of the mechanical birds dove out of the red night. It was small as a sparrow and fast as one, a blur of speed that would have been all but invisible if not for light from the burning woods. I imagined I could see the spark igniting inside of its open beak.

I moved on instinct. There was no time to measure distance or timing. My left foot slid across the ground and I lunged towards the diving bird. Using the dancing shadows created by the interplay of night and firelight, I pulled another weapon from that cold, airless world within the darkness. The sword emerged, a flat-tipped executioner’s blade of black steel with a stag’s skull on the crossguard.

Ectoplasmic miasma and embers traced the cut I made, a displacement of air that passed as a dull whoosh. The Marion fell in two pieces that clattered to the ground behind me. For several seconds, the little wings of wood and paper flapped weakly before going still.

I waited, anticipating the deadly explosion, but when nothing happened after fifteen rapid heartbeats I stood straight and looked upward again.

“There might be more,” Vicar told me. “But they seem to have pulled back.”

“The puppeteer is probably close,” I said. “Only way he could direct them so precisely.”

I searched for any vantage points where the master of the little birds might be watching. The surrounding land was relatively flat, with the lake on one side and open croplands beyond the small copse. There was a hill perhaps half a mile off with an old watchtower, dark beneath the moon.

“That’s where I’d be,” I muttered, then cursed. “Too far to catch if that’s where he is, especially if he’s got a mount and traps, which he does if he’s not a fool.”

I turned back to the vampire twins. They were both on their feet and facing me, both looking slightly awed.

“That was incredibly foolish,” the male said. “What if it just exploded in your face?”

I shrugged. “Thought maybe I could cut the fuse.”

“With a broadsword?” He asked, his voice somewhat high.

I turned to face them head-on with my sword still in hand, and they both took a step back. The female vampire hissed.

“Who are you two?” I asked them.

The woman only glared, but the posh man gave a tired smile. His wounds would have left a living man screaming in agony, but he barely seemed to notice his own charred skin or the notable dent in his breastplate that had surely caused ribs to break.

“You don’t recognize us?” He asked.

I studied them both a moment. The good whitesteel armor, the white cloaks — they were more a pale yellow on closer inspection, stained and ruined by hard use and lack of care. They would have looked identical, save that the woman was slimmer and slightly shorter. They even cut their hair to the same length. Where had I seen twin knights before, twin vampires?

My gaze fell on the medallions pinned to their cloaks, both just between the heart and left shoulder. Knight Marks, showing the emblem of a black ship.

“You were there when Evangeline Ark died,” I said. “On the hill that night, when she killed the Torslowan. You were her retainers.”

“We were her sworn swords,” the man said with unmistakeable pride. “I am Ser Alaster. This is Ser Sidsel, my sister.”

I realized something else then and scowled. “You’re both Mabsworn.”

“Loyal bannermen to House Ark!” The man said with raised eyebrows. “But yes, you have our measure, Lord Headsman.”

“Why are you following me?” I demanded.

Alaster Mabsworn shrugged. “We’ve been shadowing you for weeks now. You only noticed tonight because we allowed you to.”

“Why?”

Again, his blond eyebrows went up and he made a show of passing his gaze around the destroyed copse. “Because we knew you were under threat, and we wished to get you away from all those innocent people.”

I didn’t like the way he said the word innocent. It sounded mocking and sardonic. However, his words did make me consider how this might have gone if those suicidal puppets had attacked me at the castle, or on the streets of Harrengate with hundreds of onlookers in the line of fire. The thought made me grimace.

“Why have you been following me?” I asked. “For revenge? I didn’t kill your liege lady.”

“We don’t seek revenge on you, Headsman.” This came from the female vampire, Sidsel. She had an odd twitch, a nervous energy that seemed to shoot through her limbs and neck at random. She bared her sharp teeth at me in a smile that held no humor in it. “Remember, we were there that night.”

Alaster placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “We know that our queen surrendered to you.” He inclined his head. “We witnessed it. And since we became orphans, we have traveled in your wake. We were undecided on what we would do until now.”

I stared at them both in confusion, but rather than answer they merely traded a significant glance with one another. Then, in almost perfect unison, the two vampire knights sank to one knee.

“Ah,” Vicar said with what sounded like satisfaction.

Both vampires rested an arm on their bent knees and lowered their heads. Alaster spoke without lifting his eyes from the ground. “It was Evangeline Ark’s intention to swear fealty to you, Lord Headsman, and we would have followed her into that pact had she not been murdered by Reynard’s assassin. So, in her place, we would swear our swords and our fangs to you. If you would have us, then we shall follow you. Your enemies will be our enemies, your battles our battles, your blood our ward. We will fight for you and your House from this night and through all nights.”

I stared at both of those damned creatures in disbelief at first. Whatever I might have expected, this was not it. I’d believed they were both here to take revenge on me. Up until her final moments, Evangeline and I had been bitter enemies.

When the silence lingered and neither of the Mabsworn lifted their heads, I realized they were expecting something from me.

“What will you do?” Vicar asked me, as though reading my thoughts.

“I’m no lord you would want to follow,” I told them both. “I have no clan. I am a House of one.”

“Even still,” Alaster said. “We would pledge our swords.” More quietly he added, “We cannot return home. Our family would put us to the torch. The Banner will not have us now.”

“Any evil they do will be on my soul,” I said to Vicar in a quiet voice.

“Yes,” he said.

For a long while, I stood there while the two dead things knelt and small fires continued to burn along the edges of the copse. The larger moon rolled over the sky, and above it hung the second smaller one, gray and dead like a petrified egg suspended in the night.

It would be simpler just to kill them, I thought. For a long while, I’d been straying down the lefthand path. There were times I didn’t even know when it began or how far I’d gone into the darkness. I kept shying from it. Every new compromise, every time I faced some choice or decision with inscrutable consequences, I grappled with a hydra of doubts. It happened then, as those two monsters offered their loyalty to me in the middle of a burning wood.

“You will obey me?” I ask. “You will kill who I ask, and only who I ask?”

Alaster glanced up at me. “We will kill as you demand it, and show mercy as you desire. We will be your own bannermen.”

“You will need blood,” I reminded him.

He arched an eyebrow. “Yes… but something tells me we won’t lack it in your service.”

He said it with humor, but it was like a slap in the face.

I’d like to say it was something noble that compelled my choice. Instead, the thought that went through my mind was a memory of Rosanna speaking just that morning.

I want to knight your squire. Is she ready?

My people were drifting away from me. They had their own battles and their own ambitions. The Choir didn’t trust me and I didn’t trust them. The Queen of the Elves had already made it clear that she might also one day be my enemy, and the Accorded Realms remained disunited.

I needed fewer enemies and more friends. These were not friends, but… I would have accepted Evangeline’s oath. I’d intended to.

“You don’t have swords,” I said, observing their lack of weapons.

“We left them behind the night our lady died,” Sidsel said. There was what resembled real grief in her voice. “They were gifts from House Ark, and we could not…”

“We failed her,” Alaster growled. “We left our blade with her bones and swore an oath over them. And we will have our revenge. Reynard will pay.”

So it wasn’t just about following their lady’s will. We shared a common enemy. Somehow, that made it easier.

“We’ll find you new swords.” I lifted Faen Orgis, still in its sword shape, and tapped both vampires lightly on the shoulder. They seemed to sag as though under a great weight, or at the lifting of one.

“I will accept your fealty,” I told them.

Quietly I thought, even if it damns me further.