Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

We faced each other in silence, me and those five killers. Mist made nearly lambent by the moon's glow coiled around our legs, anticipatory in its languid motion.

It was one of Vaughn's cronies who broke that silence. "Looks more like a bear than a jackal, vice-captain. Big fucker."

"Lot of meat on him," another said, eyeing me with an uncomfortably hungry attention.

"Not enough fat. These vagabond types never eat right, makes them too tough. Too thin."

Darla, the lieutenant I'd originally followed, clicked her yellow teeth together. "Don't care. He's snooping about like a weasel, we'll skin him like one."

"Now now." Vaughn had a more reserved expression than the others, a more relaxed posture, but his gaze held a similar tension, like a starved hound taut at its master's leash. "Talk, jackal. Name yourself."

"I'm still torn between Jackal and Weasel," I quipped. "Far more charming than most names I've been given."

How had they surrounded me so easily? My more preternatural senses had been dulled when I'd let my aura go dark. Even still, the way the lieutenant and her partner had vanished into the mist, and from my own thoughts, had been uncanny.

They used glamour too. They're not ordinary mercenaries.

Their unnervingly big teeth and unsettlingly bright eyes could have told me as much.

Vaughn snorted. He didn't do anything so cocky as flourish his sword — a heavy, short blade of simple dark steel with a distinctly archaic design. Very well used judging by the nicks and scratches along its weathered surface. He held it low in one heavy fist, slightly in front of him and ready to come up into a guard with an easy movement. A professional swordsman.

The rest had a distinctly more bestial aspect, hunching and shifting around me, some even twitching as though on the verge of a fit. Darla stared at me with her mouth slightly agape, a trickle of drool running down her chin. She didn't even seem to breathe.

"This doesn't have to be difficult," Vaughn said.

"Right," I said. "Because I'd trust the honor of a ghoul."

Vaughn went very still. Too still, which made sense — he didn't need to breathe.

This was another risk of darkening one's aura. My powers allowed me to feel the presence of many more profane creatures, but it wasn't a perfect awareness. My abilities, though potent and versatile, operated by the same rules and principles as any being with an awakened soul.

Diminishing myself to be hidden came with risks. The stagnant atmosphere of the marshland had dulled my senses too, given me a general air of paranoia, and muffled the true natures of those who inhabited it.

I'd been trained to be wary in places like this. Too often in history had the True Knights, regardless of their order of origin, ventured into environs more suited to their adversaries and found what blessings they had — be they artifacts or innate abilities — weakened or even nullified. The witch hunter who found his quarry seeming no more threatening than a young woman living in the woods, only to end up in her cauldron. The paladin who didn't sense the fiendish thing lurking in his own shadow, because the twisted labyrinth about him was so full of the echoes of horror.

You underestimated this baron, I admonished myself. He has dangerous friends.

"You know what we are," Vaughn said. Even as he spoke, his skin seemed to take on a grayish pallor, his eyes becoming less vibrant. He bared his teeth. They were overlarge and the color of ivory, heavy and strong enough to crack bone.

"Your stooges weren't too subtle about it just a moment ago." I nodded to the shivering, drooling soldiers. "Unless they were trying to flirt with me? Sorry, but I'm afraid none of you are my type."

"You're funny, stranger." Vaughn jerked his chin at me. "Kill him."

With uncanny energy, the ghouls shivered into action. Vaughn brought his own heavy blade up in a guard as the others advanced. He seemed to have more control over his hunger, which made him especially dangerous.

I couldn't summon my magic, not quick enough. With my aura cooled down to embers, it would take a minute or more to stoke it back into lethal fury. Another damned risk of trying to do things the quiet way. I grit my teeth and decided to try a more unpleasant tactic.

I used the axe's magic instead.

I squeezed the uncarved branch that made the weapon's handle with my right hand, pressing my flesh hard against it. I felt one of the little barbs along the length of rough oak bite into my palm, drawing blood.

The oak soaked in the blood, drank it, and came to life.

The air filled with the sound of creaking, cracking bark, and the handle of the axe suddenly writhed in my hand. Roots split out from the bottom, more coiling up from the top to wrap around the metal head, forming a spear point. It grew longer.

I swung even as it grew, taking it in both hands. I might not have not been able to summon sorcery then, but I am most of three hundred pounds of muscle and I have been fighting all my life. I twisted, cocking the elongated axe, and whipped it across the air.

One of the ghoul's had lunged ahead of the others. The quickest of them, I guessed. Perhaps he'd prided himself on that speed.

I split his head sidelong, cleaving the upper half of his skull from the lower so a lolling tongue remained to lap at the air as he collapsed, teeth flying like bits of shrapnel in every direction.

I'd dodged with the cut, taking advantage of my suddenly longer reach, so the corpse went past me and rolled across the street. It stopped in a sprawl between two of its comrades.

Even still, horribly, the body continued to twitch with more than just death spasms. Its fingers searched for its sword dumbly, rancid blood pumping out of the cavity of its open throat.

A lightning bolt of pain shot through my shoulder. Immediately after, I felt damp warmth begin to spread. Pulled my damn stitches.

The rest paused, resizing me. Their leader spat out a curse.

"He's a fucking adept!" One of them hissed. That one's eye sockets seemed too large for the rest of his face, his eyes deeply recessed so they seemed lost within shadowy pits. He bared teeth too big for the mouth in which they were set.

I wasn't about to hold back with ghouls. I didn't know how these had been made, exactly, but I could guess — usually, ghouls are the product of starving or nearly dead men, who in their desperation for life devoured the freshly dead. The lingering traces of aura left in those bodies kept the cannibal alive, strengthened them, and left them hungry for more power to stave off their encroaching end.

They kept starving, and kept eating. The more they ate, the more they hungered for that energy, until they even went so far as to break into crypts and dig up graveyards, seeking any trace of soul-essence they could from rotting flesh and bone marrow.

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They became trapped, forever, in a state very near death. They were always dying, always at its very edge, and always kept from that end by the aura they consumed.

That stubborn grip on their ruined bodies, and the power they ate, made them very hard to kill. Even with his upper skull missing, the one I'd struck might still be dangerous.

"Ain't this a surprise," Vaughn said with an eager laugh. "That's a queer magic, friend. Yours, or that fancy axe's?"

"You should take it, vice-captain!" One of them laughed. "A handsome trophy!"

"It'll be for the captain," Vaughn growled.

"We have to share him with the others?" One of the other ghouls said, a thin line of drool beginning to emerge from his lips as he stared at me.

"Company rules," Vaughn said. "Don't worry, boys — we still get first taste."

They began to advance again, heads bent forward and backs hunched, moving with a twitching, graceless celerity. When they sprung, it would be with preternatural speed.

I tensed, crouching as I prepared to throw myself at the vice-captain. The axe grew another several inches in a single crackling burst as it sipped more of my blood.

Would their discipline crack without their big commander? It might be my only way out of this, if I could overpower him.

My shoulder throbbed with pain, and I felt dizzy. Lost too much blood recently.

Before anyone could move further, a shrill voice cut the night air and froze all of us.

"Vaughn! What are you doing?"

All four remaining ghouls flinched as the voice cracked across the buildings, sharp as a well oiled whip. All of us turned to see a figure standing on the raised porch of a house, one lifted above the street by a set of stairs.

She looked to be in her mid twenties, perhaps a bit older, average height and thin, clad only in a white night dress. She was pale, perhaps made more so by the eerie light glimmering in the mist, her face partly shrouded by an unkempt mop of chestnut brown hair. Her dress slipped from one shoulder, making me think she'd just woken.

"Catrin." Vaughn eyed the newcomer warily. "Leave it. This isn't your business."

The woman tossed her mane of frazzled hair as she lifted her chin. Her position at the top of the stairs allowed her to tower over us, like a queen looking down over a disappointing court, for all she looked like a skinny peasant woman in truth.

"To the Pit with that," she said. "Baron's expecting guests, and here he is tossing sorcery and looking fit to rip an ogre's head off."

She nodded in my direction without actually looking at me. "Call went out, boyo. I heard it. You heard it. So why don't you lay off the evil minion act for a night before something nastier than you sends you off to the Caves, eh? Looks like poor Jonas already got it. Someone help him get his skull back on, already?"

The half-beheaded corpse continued to crawl about, twitching and spasming as it pumped rotten blood onto the street. Two of its companions glanced at it uncertainly.

Vaughn's expression darkened. Something ugly rippled under his skin, an anger unbound by anything like restraint or dignity. It passed quickly, but while it was there it transformed his face, made him look as hideous as any demon I'd ever seen.

Then it passed, and he bared his teeth in a savage grin. "You shouldn't toy with us, whore. Captain's already warned you once."

He pointed his gladius at me. "He was snooping about, and isn't expected. He tells us who he is, then he dies."

"Looks like you were skipping right to the dying part," Catrin shot back, apparently unintimidated by the rage that'd overtaken the corpse eater. "If he's here to answer Falconer's call and you off him, others who've come will start to think they're not so safe here. They'll leave. Don't know about you, but I imagine his lordship won't be too pleased about that."

"He was eavesdropping on me and the baron's herald," Vaughn growled. "He's a fucking spy."

Catrin blinked and turned to me. "That so, big man? You a spy?" She folded her arms, her posture challenging.

I stared at her, nonplussed. This hadn't been a conversation I'd been anticipating.

Eanor had told me the baron gathered forces to him. I hadn't considered playing at being one of those who'd heard his summons — there were too many details I wasn't privy to, too many variables I couldn't anticipate.

It wasn't the plan, but I wasn't above improvising.

"I heard the call," I said, and shrugged. "That Lord Orson was challenging the Church, maybe even taking the fight to the Accord. I was curious."

Edgar had said the baron was at odds with the clergy. I decided to make some educated guesses, and play along with this strange theater.

I turned my gaze back to the ghouls. "Wanted to know more before I threw in on a rumor."

Vaughn narrowed his eyes, unconvinced. Catrin, however, was nodding.

"This is nonsense," the vice-captain snarled. "Catrin, we've all grown tired of your games. The Keeper's reputation can't protect you forever, and your mischief will end up getting you in over your head if you aren't smart."

"Bet she'd like that," Darla sneered, very ugly in that moment even ignoring her sallow face. "Filthy little strumpet."

Catrin sniffed, but only that and her narrowing eyes gave away any reaction. She kept her eyes on Vaughn.

The vice-captain turned his glare on me, his fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of his ancient sword. The muscles of his face shifted dramatically, almost as though they were trying to break free of the skin. I could see anger, suspicion, and sheer ghoulish hunger all urging him to kill me.

I tensed, waiting for him and his comrades to attack.

Catrin rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed huff. "Bleeding Stars, Vaughn, are you that hungry? You going to act like I didn't see you and your Mistwalkers raiding the graveyard the other night?"

To my surprise, Vaughn and his cronies suddenly looked chagrined. He glanced at Catrin sidelong. "It's not the same as eating an adept." He looked at me again and his voice lowered into a bestial growl. "Fresh."

I bared my own teeth at him. "Try it. Might burn, though." I lifted my axe to show him the bright, brassy gleam playing along its edge. I'd had time to work up my aura again, and was on the verge of being able to shape an Art.

"If everyone's done comparing their cocks," Catrin said in a dry tone, "this little spectacle is going to draw a lot of attention. The mist won't keep the villagers asleep through anything."

I paused at that. Tentatively, I felt at the coiling eddies of pale, ever-so-slightly lambent mist in the street with my magical senses.

It was subtle. I hadn't detected it until I had looked, but there was a power in the mist. That explained why none of the locals had come out to investigate the commotion me and the mercenary ghouls had caused. Some sort of subtle enchantment to keep the villagers in sleep, I guessed.

Almost as though responding to this, a shirtless man came out of the door at Catrin's back. He had the same mussed hair and sleepy eyes as the pale woman.

"What's all this noise?" He asked groggily, shivering at the cold and hugging himself.

Catrin arched an eyebrow at us. Vaughn cursed and sheathed his sword. He made a sharp gesture, and the other ghouls did the same. One was trembling, I noted, physically forcing himself not to lunge for my throat.

I'd never met ghouls this disciplined, or even this sane. Though my guard stayed up, part of me was in awe that the half dead soldiers had actually listened to reason and stopped the fight.

Vaughn growled an order to his men, threw one last glare at me, then they collected their maimed companion. One handed over the upper half of his skull, which he put back into place with a grotesque noise, bone clicking together and meat squelching.

He hadn't put it back on straightways. His eyes and mouth faced different directions as he spat a curse at me. With his missing teeth, it came out slurred and unintelligible.

Vaughn turned to the woman on the balcony before they left.

"He's your problem then, Catrin. Next time he crosses the company, he's ours. So are you."

With that disturbing remark, they vanished into the mist.

Catrin said something to the man who'd emerged from the house. He glanced at me and the retreating mercenaries, his confusion evolving into alert concern. The woman murmured into his ear, and his eyes became glazed. She laughed quietly, turned him toward the door, and gently pushed him back inside. Then she turned to me and the amusement in her eyes faded.

"You," she said, "should get to the keep before the Mistwalkers decide to make a meal of you."

"Not the inn?" I asked.

Catrin lifted an eyebrow. "You really want nothing but thin wooden walls and a bunch of drunk travelers around you when Vaughn's cronies come knocking?"

"Will they even let me in?" I asked. "It was my understanding the baron's guests had to wait in the village until called."

She studied me a moment, her thoughts unreadable behind a neutral mask. I waited, tense and prepared to quit this place and try another tactic. I clearly didn't understand enough about the strange situation unraveling itself in this gloomy land.

"I've got a pass into the castle," Catrin finally said. "Just don't like it there much, so I've been staying here." She shrugged. "I'll show you the way."

Couldn't be that easy. "Why?" I asked.

"Because I'm bored," she said. "And because the marrow lickers might try to get back at me now, too. Best to have a big lug like you at my shoulder when they try to get even, eh?"

She grinned, revealing crooked teeth. "Besides, I'm technically supposed to be at the council for the baron's little club. I skipped class. Better late than a no show, right?"

Before I could say anything, she pushed off the railing and vanished back into the house, reemerging a minute later with a yellow dress over her night shift and a satchel around her waist. She had a pair of shoes slung over one elbow by the strings as she pattered down a stairs. She flashing a crooked grin as she looked up into my face.

"You aren't scared of water, are you big man? Lake is awful deep."

"I can swim," I said, still nonplussed.

"Good, good. That'll make one of us. Let's go."

Before I could protest, Catrin had started off toward the lake.

Is this another bit of divine interference, I thought, or some darker providence?

Hard to say. But I needed into that castle.

I followed her.