Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 6: Chapter 16: Yield

“It’s very simple, Hyperia.”

I moved to stand next to Ostanes, who watched our prisoner with an intent expression. Emma stood near the corner on the other side of the crowfriar, and when she caught my eye I gave her an apologetic look. Doing things this way didn’t sit well with me, and I did regret keeping her ignorant of this part of the plan.

Putting it from my mind for the time, I turned to face the Vyke. “Ostanes has as close to a confession as he needs. You have bound one of the abgrüdai to your service, and that is not only heresy under the God-Queen’s law, but it also breaks the edicts of Orkael.”

“…I see.” Hyperia impressed me by seeming calm, even curious, though she must have known how hopeless her situation was. “And what does that mean, precisely?”

“It means your soul is forfeit.” Ostanes smiled and shrugged. “All the old stories of sinners being dragged down into the flames of Hell, back before this land’s underworld was dug out? This is what those referred to. Those who willfully call the denizens of the Abyss forth and make our job more difficult must be dealt with somehow. Punished.”

He waved a hand, revealing his burnt fingers. He’d changed while he talked. Gone was the handsome western merchant. In his place stood a figure very much like the form Vicar had taken during Emma’s trial before the Choir. A grievously burned man stood next to me, clad in tattered robes in varying shades of gray like an ash-drowned monk. He didn’t wear a hood like Vicar had, only a scarf over a mostly fleshless neck, so the weeping, oily scabs on his bald skull were fully visible. His eyes burned like hot coals in pitted eyes.

The stink of cooked meat and sulfur filled the room.

“I will take you with me when I go from this place,” the monk of Hell rasped through what remained of his teeth. “My masters will mete out your full doom once I bring you before the Tribunal.”

Hyperia was not a demon, or a great magus. She was just a young woman with some occultism who’d been raised by a very bad man. She stared at the face of her death, and there was fear in her eyes.

Lisette stared at Ostanes with a less clear emotion. She was a devotee of the Church, a scribe of God who’d dedicated her life to the teachings of the Heir of Heaven. Yet, she’d also seen the ugliest sides of her own faith. She knew, as I did, that there were many complications and half-truths to the beliefs we’d been raised on.

Emma was another story. She believed in gods and devils, but she liked none of them and trusted their authority even less. She stared hard at the infernal monk, her hands clasped firmly behind her back, and said nothing.

“Ser,” Penric addressed me in a tight voice. “You didn’t tell me that…”

“That I’d involved an occult power in this?”

Penric’s lips formed a firm line. “This is profane.”

Perhaps. I wasn’t even certain he was wrong, and didn’t have time to explain my own reasoning, especially with Hyperia right there. “You can wait downstairs with Beatriz and Mallet if you want, bowman. This doesn’t need to involve you.”

Just because my faith was often challenged didn’t mean I needed to beat an old man over the head with doubt. I’d not expected him to care so much, but perhaps Kenneth’s cold summary of the archer had influenced my opinion of him. He wouldn’t be the first killer I knew with strong faith.

Penric glanced at me, then at our prisoner. He considered a moment, sighed, and hoisted his crossbow onto one shoulder. “I have your leave, ser?”

Disappointed but not surprised, I nodded. He left the room. I turned my attention to Lisette. When she noticed my look, she gave me a brave smile.

“I will not abandon you, Alken. I understand what is at stake.”

“And what is at stake?” Hyperia spoke in a dull voice, most of her flippant defiance now withered. “You have me, don’t you? What’s the point of all this theater?”

“There’s still a choice to make, princess.” I took a deep breath. “A way to spare your soul from eternal torment. Perhaps even to live through this.”

Hyperia’s eyes went to me, a frown creasing her brow.

“We want Yith. You hold his true name. Give it over to Ostanes, and he’ll settle for binding the demon and returning it to its gaol. Do that, and you will only be judged by your fellow mortals. I’ll take you before the emperor and let him decide. More than likely, he’ll make you and your brother swear obeisance and restore you to your throne.”

“As puppets,” she hissed.

“But your House will survive, and perhaps one day even regain its honor. It’s the best deal you’re going to get.”

“I could fight you and become a martyr. Even if I burn, the rest of this wretched land can do it with me.”

She was right. A new rebellion might not follow her without King Hasur, but it would happily use her and her brother as a symbol.

I studied her a long moment. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill your father?”

Hyperia blinked, then turned her eyes down. At first, I didn’t think she’d answer. But after a minute she began to speak in a pensive voice.

“Yith was not the first demon my family bound. Father learned how to do it from Reynard, back before the war when we were still children. He would loose them in a wing of our castle and have his guards lock me and Calerus in. It was how he trained us. Once, it took us eleven days to find our way out.”

Lisette held a hand to her mouth. “Golden Heart of God,” she breathed. Even Emma looked taken aback.

I tried to imagine it. The twisted labyrinths those hungering spirits would create in the halls, the mind games they would play. The worst part was I could imagine it — I’d experienced it. But I’d been able to fight back.

To condemn children to that...

Hyperia’s eyes lifted to mine, her mouth opening slightly as she lingered on some memory. “You’ve seen my brother? The way he looks?”

She explained after I’d nodded. “He’s a ghoul. It was the only way he could gain the strength to protect me from our father’s creatures. He broke into the old crypts when we were twelve years old and ate the marrow of the dead until he vomited. Then he kept eating. For days. The strength of our ancestors fills him like a wellspring.”

She leaned forward, her expression hardening. “He ate the bones of our father. Calerus is my king, not that old beast, and if you think our home is without strength, then you are sadly mistaken.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath and leaned her head back on the chair, looking deflated. “So do as you will with me, executioner. You do not have my brother. He is the one who will lift us out of this endless nightmare. It is his destiny, what he was born for. The strength and knowledge of every Vyke who was buried beneath the Peak of Garlands resides within him.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And we will balk from no heresy if it leads us to overturning this decaying order.”

I stared at her, my jaw clenched tight. My doubt was reflected in Lisette’s eyes, and Emma wore a frustrated expression. We’d all hoped laying out the situation in full would compel the talsyner princess to see reason. But there was conviction in her eyes, the burning light of fanaticism.

Ostanes tilted his head. “Odd… you said Calerus devoured the dead to gain the strength to protect you. Is that correct?”

Hyperia went still, perhaps sensing something in the crowfriar’s tone that made her wary. “Yes.”

The devil monk smiled. “I wonder, would he sacrifice anything to achieve this grand rebellion of yours? Would he sacrifice you?”

The burnt man leaned forward, his hellfire eyes flaring into bright crimson spots. “If I showed him your soul after I’ve ripped it from you and told him what you will suffer, would he accept it?”

“He would delve into the very flame to take me back!”

Ostanes’s terrible grin widened. Hyperia realized her mistake and blanched.

“How quaint. And if I told you that he would share your fate? I’m certain I could mock up evidence that he’s complicit enough for the Tribunal to accept it. I am very good at this, my lady.”

“You couldn’t take him. Even the leader of your order couldn’t beat him.” She gestured to me with her head.

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“Oh, I wouldn’t lay a hand on either of you.” Ostanes held a charred finger to his lips, or what remained of them. “For this sort of matter, I’d use Scorchknights. I’d only really need one, but I think three would resolve the matter in an orderly fashion.”

Three Jon Orley’s. The idea made me feel ill. Hyperia must not have been unfamiliar with the term, because she fell silent.

“There is an alternative,” Ostanes offered. “The demon’s name, Hyperia.”

The princess closed her eyes. I glanced at Lisette, but the cleric shook her head. Our prisoner wasn’t trying to call her minion again. Just weighing her options. Reaching a decision.

Hyperia looked at me. “You promise my brother and I will be allowed to keep Talsyn?”

“I can promise you nothing,” I told her bluntly. “But I think you’ve seen enough of Markham Forger to know that he’ll make the decision that keeps our realms stable. If I had to guess, he’ll keep you as a hostage and let Calerus go home. Your people will be offered food and healers.”

Hyperia scoffed. “Along with Accord soldiers, no doubt.” She inhaled through her nose, considering, then nodded slowly. “And if the gods order you to take our heads?”

I said nothing. That would be just, for all the evil they’d done. Yet, the satisfaction of punishing the Vykes for their crimes wouldn’t help our land heal.

A compromise, much like the one that’d led me to allying with Ostanes.

In tourney, it is always better to make your enemy surrender. To kill them is tantamount to admitting that your cause is not just. When the God-Queen stood before Her armies at the very gates of this land and handed down the tenets of chivalry and knighthood, She also implored one truth upon those warriors of legend.

Might does not make right. To forget that truth is to become little better than beasts in shining armor, and to invite the worst to inherit the mantle.

I did not expect her to cave, even after all this. I’d anticipated reckless madness, bravado, defiance to the very end. Some horrible trick that’d free her and force my hand. I’d seen it in other madmen and man-made monsters who’d been given the Headsman’s doom. In the face of defeat, they almost always went down fighting.

So when Hyperia looked to the crowfriar and sighed, I’ll admit it shocked me. “I bound Yith with more than just his true name. It will take some time to give up all those rites. How good is your memory?”

“Very,” Ostanes said while glancing at me sidelong, some of my surprise reflected in his desiccated features. “Best we get started.”

A tightness in my chest loosened for the first time in many days. Was this actually going to work?

A knock came at the door, and Penric peeked back in. “Ser, you’re needed downstairs.”

I frowned. “What is it?”

“Best you see for yourself.” He glanced at the prisoner meaningfully.

I didn’t want to leave and risk something going wrong, but both Emma and Lisette were present and Hyperia couldn’t work aura inside that circle.

“Stay here and guard her,” I ordered Penric. If he had qualms about the crowfriar, then he could swallow them for five minutes. There was too much at stake.

The old archer didn’t argue, and I made my way downstairs. Beatriz and Mallet both waited in the first floor’s main chamber, their expressions tense and hands tight on their weapons.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Someone knocking on the door,” Mallet told me, nodding to the tower’s entrance. I could hear the storm outside, stirring the water below us into a violent churn.

“Least, we think so.” Beatriz shrugged. “It’s damn loud out there, but we both heard it.”

I frowned. Someone from the court? Had Markham or Rosanna sent a messenger? I’d ordered my people to admit no one without my say so. Nodding my thanks to the two, I ordered them to be ready and went to the door. Without removing the bar, I listened closely. The waves crashed, the rain pounded down above, and thunder rumbled almost incessantly.

But I heard nothing else. Closing my eyes, I focused my less mortal senses. The storm made those less reliable too. Violent weather attracts aura in much the same way the tournament did by design. Anything that draws strong emotions, be it fear or awe, also draws forth the spiritual emanations of living beings. It’s why storm ogres are so mighty compared to their more earthly cousins.

It also made my powers less reliable. The weather interfered, so all I could sense were the crackling energies coalescing above the Fulgurkeep.

But something felt wrong. An instinct, or a hunch, more than any supernatural premonition. Lisette and I had spent time warding the tower before all this so I wouldn’t get another surprise visit from Yith. Even still, what if Calerus could command the demon too? What if he’d sent it to look for his sister, and this was the first place it thought to check?

Very likely.

“Weapons out,” I said and backed away from the door. Only the sound of steel hissing against leather told me the two soldiers had followed my order.

I closed my eyes in concentration and reached into a patch of shadows along the wall. It took roughly five breaths to find that sensation I’d started to become accustomed to, and my hand sunk into the Wend. Immediately I felt the gnarled branch of Faen Orgis’s handle along with the biting sensation of deathly cold that seemed to dominate that other space. Oddly, the wood under my hand felt slightly damp as though it were raining on the other side.

I started to pull it out. I’d revealed perhaps half of the handle when a pale hand burst from the shadows and grasped my wrist.

Beatriz let out a cry of alarm. Mallet cursed like only a dockhand can. Their stomping boots warned me they’d back away. Instinctively I pulled back, and the slender form of a rain-soaked and very annoyed vampire emerged along with my weapon.

“Didn’t you hear me knocking?” Catrin hissed furiously, still clamping onto my wrist. If not for my gauntlet, she’d have been digging her nails into my flesh. “And why can’t I get into the tower? It was like trying to swim through molasses.”

But she’d been able to slip past the wards when I’d pulled the axe out. Did it work like an invitation, or had I inadvertently punched some sort of hole through the barrier? Interesting, either way.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her.

Catrin frowned, as though confused by the question. She looked worse than the previous night, her skin deathly gray and tight on her bones. She’d found a change of clothes, now dressed in a skirt, boots, and a tunic laced from collar to sternum. It didn’t quite hide some of the necrotizing wounds crawling up the right side of her neck, and the skin was so thin on one cheek it was near to forming a hole that’d reveal some of her back teeth when it appeared.

Whatever Yith had done to her was making her deteriorate very quickly. I could smell it.

“I tried to find you,” Catrin said with worry in her eyes, which were so pale they’d nearly gone milk white. “I was worried. The Coloss got evacuated, and there were soldiers everywhere. I thought the Vykes had started their big coup. Then I found someone dressed like you, but he wasn’t you.”

Her eyes hardened. “His blood didn’t taste right at all.”

My heart skipped a beat. Hendry. Grabbing the dhampir by the shoulders, I gave her a shake and made her focus. “Cat, that was Hendry pretending to be me. What did you do? Is he…”

What had she done?

Catrin gave me a lazy smile. “Oh, he’s fiiiine. I just had a little nibble. He tasted terrible.

She bit her lower lip, then glanced at Mallet and Beatriz. “Well, maybe we could talk in private?” She leaned forward and stage whispered. “I need to get your doppleganger’s taste out of my mouth, if you know what I mean.”

She giggled. I stared at her, a sinking feeling forming in my chest. Out of the corner of my eye, Mallet was staring at Catrin with something halfway between horror and disgust. He directed some of it at me. I could hear Beatriz slinking around behind me, moving to surround the dhampir.

Catrin’s eyes suddenly shot to the guardswoman, going wide and still as an animal’s. Her faded pupils expanded, and some red veins began to form along the sclera.

“You.” She leaned towards Beatriz, and I think only my grip on her shoulders stopped her from advancing on the other woman. “What’s that for, huh? That for me, girlie?”

Beatriz had drawn her war pick. I caught her eye, saw the fear on her face. She was waiting for my order.

I returned my attention to Catrin and spoke in as soothing a voice as I could. “Cat, I need you to listen. Are you listening?”

Her eerie eyes slid from Beatriz, narrowing as they looked directly into mine. “I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this, but those peepers of yours are so hot. They hurt like hell to stare at, but I just can’t help it. Is that what staring at the sun is like?”

Where I grasped her right shoulder, a single small red beetle was crawling across the back of my hand. I clenched my jaw at the sight and tried to keep myself calm. “Cat, I need you to go. Get somewhere safe and wait until sunrise, then find me. Can you do that?”

She frowned. “I don’t want to go. I was worried about you!”

“I’m fine,” I said insistently.

“You’re not.” She gave me a level look. “You’ve got three fractured ribs and a break just below your left knee. A bit of the bone is poking into your muscle. I can…” Her eyes closed and she shuddered. “I can smell it. I can make it feel better, Al. I can numb your pain.”

Her hands slid up my breastplate, gliding along the smooth metal. “We just need to get this off.”

A creak as Beatriz adjusted her stance. Catrin’s eyes flicked to her, and narrowed.

“The fuck is going on here?” Mallet asked. “Is that a dyghoul?”

Catrin bared her fangs in a feral expression I would not call a grin. “What’d you just call me, anvil face?” When she caught my eye again, she frowned. “Al, did you not tell your new friends about us?”

She leaned toward Beatriz. “We’re sort of a thing. He said he likes my eyes.”

She laughed that drunken laugh again, even as her corpse eyes darkened further to red. Her canines looked more pronounced now. Beatriz swallowed, a bead of sweat working its way down her temple.

Closing my eyes, I took a resigned breath and reached a decision. Putting what little aura I could muster into my voice, I spoke with the echoing power of a command.

“Catrin of Ergoth. Look into my eyes.”

She shivered, and met my gaze. Her eyes widened and lost some of their bestial tint.

“You are not well,” I said with less power, not wanting to hurt her. “You need to find a place to hide and wait for me.”

Her expression became uncertain. “But…”

I cupped her chin in one hand and tilted her mouth up. Her lips parted. I ignored the sickly-sweet scent of her breath, and the stray crawling thing I spotted on her. “Please, Cat. This is almost over.”

Her eyes widened. “It is? You mean…”

“Yes,” I said in relief at the sudden focus in her expression. “I managed to get Hyperia to surrender, we just—”

“Surrender?”

The sharp edge in her voice made me freeze, and in a rush of panic I realized my mistake. “Catrin,” I said sternly. “Listen to me, and—”

But there was no longer any warmth or doubt in her eyes. “That evil bitch!” She hissed savagely. “She’s gotten into your head, hasn’t she? Just like… oh, Al, she’s a wicked one. You can’t let her keep doing this to you.”

Suddenly, her head shot to one side and she looked past me, sniffing the air like an animal. Her eyes widened further. “She’s here.”

“This doesn’t concern you,” I said more harshly. “You’re not yourself right now, Cat.”

But she didn’t seem to hear me. Catrin was nodding, her brow furrowed with a sudden determined focus. “I’ll free you. I’ll make you forget her. She’ll never hurt you again. Then maybe we can…”

She saw the confusion in my eyes, bit her lip, then slugged me right in the chin. It was an uppercut, and a damn good one. I hadn’t been ready for it at all. I lost my grip and stumbled back into Mallet, who barely caught me before I bowled us both over. He wasn’t very tall, but he was built like a castle turret and about as solid.

Before I could right myself, Catrin slipped back into the shadows. The last I saw of her were her apologetic eyes and her angry, determined expression.

And the dagger she clutched in her hand.