Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

In my mind, I moved through the series of actions I would take next.

Draw my dagger, move under the ogre's legs and hamstring it. If Catrin comes at me, I use the ogre as a shield and wield my axe. Make for the window on the far side of the room, cut down anyone who gets in my way. Use Art if I have to, even if it burns my aura out.

The ogre bared his gray fangs and flexed fingers near thick as my wrists. I tensed.

"Hold, Karog." Lillian's rasping voice filled the room. "He is the baron's guest, and it is Orson who should decide his fate. Stay your hand."

Another growl ripped out of the ogre's throat, impossibly loud. "I do not answer to you, witch."

The old woman's face darkened with anger. She wore many rings and bracelets, and toyed with one of those accoutrements now as she contemplated the hulking warrior. Some of those sitting nearest to her shifted nervously.

The hunter remained relaxed, his feet propped up, and the two in the hooded cloaks kept whispering to one another. The man in the battered armor kept eating, ignoring everyone.

Catrin muttered a curse behind me.

I noticed something else then. The shadows around me and the ogre had deepened, the already wan flames of the chandelier seeming to retreat from us. A heaviness hung in the air, and the very faint sound of many tiny, scuttling legs.

The same thing I had felt in the lower levels of the castle.

Karog didn't seem to have noticed it. One of his hands went to his belt, where a weighty blade, like a cleaver, hung in a crude sheath.

I didn't think I could match him, not in my condition. But when dealing with predators, you never show weakness. Couldn't fight, probably couldn't flee, so…

Time to play a part. All those around me were high class villains of one sort or another. I'd been called one myself, more than once.

Time to wrap myself in the aspect.

I propped my axe down on the floor, resting my hand on its head as I cast a disdainful look on the hulking creature. "I can tell you're a stranger to these lands, kin fomori, so I'll do my best to explain something I assume obvious to everyone else here."

Karog paused at the old name I'd used, his heavy brow furrowing. The silence took on a sharper aspect, broken only by the feasting man.

"What are you doing, big man?" Catrin lingered behind me, as though using me as a shield against the behemoth. Perhaps she was doing exactly that.

Ignoring her, I kept my focus on the ogre. "You're from the continent, aren't you?"

Most war ogres were, crafted by western alchemists in bad old days to act as shock troops and suicide soldiers.

"I know things are different there," I continued, "but here in Urn, everything has some faerie meddling in it. This land is gravid with old enchantment. It has a way of sticking to things."

Lillian leaned forward, an amused glint flickering in her corpse eyes. The hunter lifted his fingers to his tricorn, propping up its brim as his attention focused on me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the hobgoblin in the aristocratic garments stroke at his thorned chin. He was nodding.

"We mere mortals don't always ask for their gifts," I said, letting a bitter note enter my voice. I desperately hoped none of the sweat beading on my brow would be noticeable through my unkempt bangs, or that it would trickle down to my chin.

Karog grunted, one corner of his lip curling to show his teeth again. "You mean to say this stench on you is the result of some curse?"

I let a grim smile cross my lips. "No, I consented to it. Just didn't understand the cost at the time. That's how the Sidhe work — give you what you think you want, then leave you to spend your days in regret."

"Hear hear!" The monstrous noble called, banging a fist down on the table. It made several plates jump, startling one of the hooded twins. The armored man growled, but didn't stop eating.

Not an elf, I thought as I glanced at the hobgoblin. Not entirely. A man changed into that, or a changeling cursed with a mixed nature. Guess I found one sympathetic ear in this audience.

The hunter also looked attentive, his head tilted to one side as he studied me.

Karog didn't look convinced. His hand lingered on the cleaver.

"Why did you bring him, Catrin?" Lillian spoke to the woman shrinking behind me.

"Well, uh…" Catrin coughed, stepping out so everyone could see her. "He seemed scary enough, and I figured the baron would want to meet him. More the merrier, right?"

She shrugged, looking as unconvinced as everyone else by the excuse. I hid a wince.

"We don't have time to indulge your tastes," Lillian hissed. "If he suits your fancy, you could have kept him in the village."

Catrin's eyes flashed with anger. "Oh, shut your wrinkled trap, Lilly."

"Regardless…" the ghoulish woman turned her attention back to me. "The scent of elves, and an axe wrought from the branch of a Malison Oak…" She leaned forward and sniffed again. "Yes, that is a fell thing. Where did you get such an accursed treasure, Alken?"

I did not answer, taken aback that she'd recognized my weapon for what it was.

"He is probably a ranger or some questing knight discarded once his purpose was done," the monster nobleman growled. He had a burbling, lisping voice tinged with something more bestial. "I have seen it often enough before. Is this not so, man?"

I glanced at him. "It is near enough. My tale is for the baron, if he chooses to ask it, and if I decide to pledge to him."

The hobgoblin chortled. "True enough! I say we let him stay."

"And if he is a spy?" Karog snapped.

The changeling shrugged. "Such magic suffuses the lands far and wide, Karog, just as he said. It is not that uncommon, nor does it mean he is a danger to us."

"So you are here to pledge to Orson?" One of the shadowed twins asked. They had an androgynous voice, some enchantment woven into their garment masking it. It came out buzzing and artificial from the fuzzy blackness beneath their cowl.

I'm not suited for this, I thought. I could not tell a direct lie — my powers would punish me for it, and I couldn't afford to be any weaker just then. I'd already skirted around the truth, and eventually one of these blackguards would sniff out the deception.

"I heard of this council through rumor and heresay," I said. "From those wiser than myself. I can say no more. All you need know is that I can fight, and well."

I turned my stare on Karog, working to keep my expression and voice dispassionate. "If you need me to demonstrate now, I am willing."

The ogre lowered his head. A threat, not a surrender. He bared his prominent lower fangs and tensed, as ready for violence as myself.

Lillian scowled. "If you were not given invitation to this council, then our discussion is not for your ears. Catrin, this was ill done. You have already stretched our patience!"

Catrin folded her arms, looking nervous, and said nothing.

"I agree." The one cloaked twin who'd already spoken said. They poised hands wrapped in dark cloth on the table. "Our enemy has eyes and ears across all of Urn. Their puppet priests, yes, but others too. Spirits disguised as trees, birds, dreams… even men."

The hooded gaze fixed on me, the voice within falling silent. I felt that hostile attention from all sides once more. Catrin was of no help — I could tell she regretted bringing me here by her silence and nervous expression.

He is no spirit.

I went dead still. The voice had not come from anyone sitting at the table, or standing in the shadowy alcoves as Karog had. It came from all around, a shivering, manifold thing as though many quiet, ghostly voices spoke at once, their collective presence becoming something more substantial.

It slithered from every shadow. With every syllable it changed, sometimes deep and masculine and sometimes airy and effeminate, a profane chorus forming one voice.

He smells of fire and blood.

And pain.

Regret.

He is mortal.

Touched by an immortal flame.

He is marked.

Claimed.

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The sound of many insectile feet scuttling across the walls intensified, as though excited. Karog's eyes were going everywhere, his fangs bared, his cleaver half drawn.

Claimed by mine own kin.

Everyone in the room was scared. I could see it in their panicked faces. Even the armored man had stopped eating.

The scars over my left eye itched. I made an effort of will not to lift my hand and feel the old wounds, though the discomfort grew worse by the second.

The hobgoblin swallowed, his entire neck bulging like a frightened toad's. Lillian seemed to sink into her chair. All around us, unseen things skittered in the shadowed corners. The source of the voice.

A new shadow appeared on the balcony at the back of the room. My eyes went up to it, and Karog saw my attention and turned himself.

A man had appeared there, atop the stairs overlooking the dining room. He was tall, in his mid fifties, clad in a princely white robe of ancient design woven with patterns of red and blue, winged in flaring sleeves lined in black netting studded with small gems. He looked like some dark emperor out of an old fable, not a country lord at all.

The gems woven into his outfit glittered in the candelight like eerie green eyes as he lifted one hand to the balcony railing, letting ringed fingers trail across it. Though heavily shadowed above the hall, I could see his eyes as the firelight caught them. They were a bright shade of violet.

"My lord," Lillian breathed. Her face, already pale, had turned ashen. "You assured us that creature would not be present during these discussions."

The Baron did not answer her. He had begun to descend the stairs without hurry, his fingers lingering on the railing. Without looking at him, he spoke to the ogre.

"Will you not take your hand off your weapon, Karog?"

The Baron had a melodic voice, soft and deep as dark waters, yet it seemed to fill the room.

The scuttling noise grew louder. I couldn't tell where it came from — everywhere? It seemed to fill the shadows.

Karog's eyes, orange-rimmed, showed little fear. Indignation, and calculation, but no panic like the hobgoblin or Lillian. I saw him consider killing the man.

He chose reason instead, slamming his blade back into its sheath as he stepped back into the columns, hunching there like some enormous guard dog. He said nothing else.

"I bid you welcome," Orson Falconer said. I realized he spoke to me, as his violet eyes drifted toward my face. "I regret that the hospitality of my hall is not what it might have once been, but I offer it all the same."

A second figure followed the Baron. The one in the green cloak, his herald. They — she, I recalled Vaughn's crude insult — drifting behind the lord like a silent shadow.

I inclined my head, deciding to show respect. "I apologize for arriving unannounced, my lord. I did not fully understand all of this before arriving. I only knew it might interest me."

"The Keeper's representative told you of this meeting, I understand?"

Orson had reached the bottom of the stair. Now I saw him level, I got a better look. He had short hair receding into a sharp widow's peak, black striped with gray, and a dusky skinned face which remained handsome in age. He had a scholar's build despite his height, not a warrior's, thin and long limbed, with shadowed eyes and gaunt cheeks.

"That's right," Catrin offered nervously. "Seemed like someone you would want to meet, your uh… your lordship."

"We were just discussing this one," Lillian noted as she tracked the baron's movements with her maniacal eyes.

"He was not invited!" The talkative twin said. "I do not wish to speak of delicate matters with an unknown element listening, Orson."

Before the lord had a chance to speak, an armored fist slammed down on the table with thunderous force. All eyes, including my own, turned to the figure sitting at the far end of the table. The feasting man.

He'd finally raised his head, revealing a heavily bearded, wild haired visage. He wore battered armor which had seen at least one hard campaign, and probably many. There were deep shadows around his pale eyes, and beneath the mane of gray-streaked hair he was painfully gaunt.

He'd eaten the entire leg of meat he'd been working on. Even the bone.

"I've had enough of this," the armored man growled. His voice was dry and rasping, as though he badly needed water and had for a very long time. "I came here to discuss war. I don't care about the rest."

He took a scrap of his ruined gray cloak and wiped it across his mouth, doing little to clean his matted beard and further soiling the garment. "If we're not here for business, then I'll take my Mistwalkers and go."

The Baron inclined his head to the ghoul. "I do not want that, my friend. And I concur. Let us return to business." He gestured toward me again. "Will you sit, Master Alken? You as well, Catrin."

I was still shaken by the thing in the shadows — or was it the shadows? But I nodded and moved to a chair. I found one as far from any of the others as I could, which wasn't an easy feat as unevenly spaced as they all were. Catrin chose a seat right next to me, though I sensed it was more a bet for safety than any camaraderie.

She shot me a furtive glance and shrugged, then went about inspecting the array of food and drink set on the table. A whole feast, though only the mercenary captain had partaken so far.

"Excellent." The Baron ran his eyes across the gathering one more time, then took his own seat. He adjusted his sleeves, then relaxed into the high-backed chair.

"Then let us begin."

"Why don't we start with why you've called us," the blacked robed figure suggested, the only one of the duo who'd spoken. Their companion remained silent and still, a vaguely humanoid shadow slumped in their fine chair. "I have my suspicions, but I am curious as to the true purpose of this… council."

There were murmurs of agreement from the others. I folded my arms, idly running my eyes over the feast to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.

The captain of the Mistwalker Company had already eaten much of it. He started in on another leg with noisy, vaguely sickening sounds.

The Baron nodded and steepled his fingers. "I have called you all here to discuss, as Captain Issachar so succinctly put it, war."

The hush in the room deepened, an air of eager anticipation falling over the guests. I fixed my attention on the Baron more firmly as well. The mercenary leader even stopped his ravenous eating to hear the lord better.

"Ten years." The Baron paused, letting those words sink in. "Ten years since the forests of Seydis burned, since the towers of Elfhome fell and the Archon, voice of the Choir of God, was slain. Many in this new alliance which professes to govern the land, this Accord…"

His voice turned bitter. "Believe that was the beginning of the land's woes. But that is not true, is it?"

An anticipatory silence followed that statement. I did not rush to break it.

The Baron continued. "For long centuries have the ancient powers who profess to guide us let their idle whims and favoritism chart our fates. For long centuries have they professed to rule on behalf of their Golden Queen, while Her voice remains silent."

Blasphemy, an angry voice in my soul warned. I quelled it. Now was not the time.

The sanguine calm in the Baron's violet eyes cracked like glass as he spoke. His voice never changed, never rose, but an edge of cutting anger was there — in the way his left hand clenched and relaxed in tandem with his jaw, in the deadly quiet of his every word. A quiet which filled the hall. Drowned it.

"We all know the elves are their puppets," the Baron said, and the hobgoblin let out a low, throaty growl of agreement. "We all know the Church is their tool, for all its infighting and factionalism. Even the Accord and its representatives bend to the whims of our so called gods."

The blond man in the tricorn shifted. A subtle motion, his slouching posture remaining relaxed, but I sensed him to be more alert than he let on.

"I have had enough." The Baron drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Enough of my people worrying over whether their crops will die because they did not direct their prayers to the east with enough fervor. Enough of bending to the fey whims of lesser immortals whose petty, childish antics are enabled by the world's insistence on wallowing in nostalgia. Enough of fearing for the souls of mine own blood, whose very peace in death isn't even a guarantee."

Layers of cloth rustled as the two black-robed figures stirred in their seats.

Lillian leaned forward, her feverish eyes intense with interest. "Is this why you had the bridge troll butchered? Are you declaring war against the Sidhe, Orson?"

"They are vulnerable enough," the goblin lord laughed. "Scattered, their eldest driven mad by old Tuvon's death, those blessed champions of theirs all gone. It's a ripe time for it, I say."

"You gave that order?" The talkative twin asked the Baron.

Issachar let out a hollow, rasping laugh. "Fucking thing kept trying to get my men to pay his toll. Never heard that old saying, you and what army, I suppose."

The huntsman at my side tensed and adjusted his cap.

"That was a stupid thing to do."

It wasn't until all eyes present turned to me that I realized I had been the one to say the words. Catrin winced at my side, shifting as though to put more distance between us.

The commander of the ghoul mercenaries fixed his hungry eyes on me. "Come again?"

Inwardly, I winced. I'd meant to draw as little attention to myself as possible, but the troll's death kept flashing through my mind. The brutal way it had been dismembered, the callous cruelty of the display made from that violence. I recalled its terror and confusion as it had been killed, that echo passed into my aura now, part of it — possibly forever.

The anger boiling up in me couldn't all be blamed on the golden ghosts sewn to my soul.

"It was a stupid thing to do," I said again, letting my own voice drop into an angry growl to match the ghoul's. "Settled trolls are arbiters for their domains, centers of balance. Magically, and socially. I crossed that bridge on my way here. Saw what your men did."

I met the ghoul's eyes and held them. "You didn't just kill it. You desecrated it. That bridge will become a locus of hostile od, probably for centuries, and that's not even mentioning the attention it drew. I heard your Mistwalkers talking before I arrived at the castle. Something about irks raiding from the forests? Why do you think that's started up all the sudden, corpse eater?"

The ghoul's chair screeched as he stood and slammed his palms down on either side of his mostly empty plate. He glared at me, too-big teeth bared, his face a rictus mask of anger.

"Maybe you are an elf friend," he hissed. "I don't remember you being given a voice at this council. I was willing to overlook it while the baron did, but keep your trap shut."

Bits of food and spit flew from his lips as he spoke, his foggy blue eyes wide with threat. I held his gaze, my jaw clenched. I felt very aware of Karog still lurking between the columns, and of the subtle ambience of skittering insects in the shadows. That thing which had arrived at the same time as the baron was still here.

A chuckle coiled mockingly through the room. It had come from Lillian. "Ah, so our vagabond friend here is not just a thug who caught the Backroad wench's eye. I misjudged you, Master Alken."

She dipped her head in my direction, the elaborate coils of her silver hair remaining fixed in place as firmly as if they were made of ceramic. Then she turned to the Baron. "The newcomer is right. Killing the troll was preemptive and poorly done. It exposed us before we were ready."

"I agree," said the young hunter at my side.

"It was the most dangerous threat in this region," Issachar said, sullen now that he'd been ganged up on. "And it had wendgates all over the damn wilderness. I need my troops to be able to move freely, and not have to worry about paying every time. No matter where we went, we'd find that damn bridge."

"What was its toll?" I asked.

Issachar glared at me, his lips forming a thin line. I met his stare and asked again. "What was its toll? No troll's passage price is ever the same. What did it ask for the use of its bridges?"

I could nearly hear the ghoul's teeth grinding.

"Don't know, do you?" I asked, flashing my own teeth at him. "Didn't even bother finding out. He might have just wanted a riddle, or a cup of spring water. They don't always ask for coin."

"Fingernails."

It was Catrin who'd spoken, though she seemed reluctant to do it. She'd made an effort to avoid notice through the meeting, but sighed as all the attention went to her.

"Fingernails," she repeated. "That was his price. He preferred those from the left forefinger."

She held up her left hand to demonstrate. It might have been my imagination, but the nail on the first finger of that hand seemed shorter than the rest.

Lillian laughed. It was a severely unpleasant sound, a screeching cackle that echoed off the ancient castle walls, a show of mirth to put even the most fell witch to shame.

"What, you death eaters prize your pretty nails that much? Oh, that's rich!"

Issachar's face turned red. "He was an Onsolain bondsman. He would have challenged us in time."

"Fingernails!" Lillian chortled, still caught up in her amusement. Issachar growled and reached for the sword at his hip.

Another, much deeper growl filled the chamber from the ogre still lurking in the shadows. The ghoul froze.

"Peace!" Orson held up his hand. He sighed. "I think, perhaps, we should retire this discussion for now. The matter of the bridge troll is not an insignificant one. I must consider. I will speak to you of it later, Captain."

Issachar looked to the baron and nodded sharply. He looked half caught between rabbit terror and canine rage, and unable to decide which beast to be.

"I will speak to you now, Alken." The Baron looked to me. "In private."