Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Our band traveled out of the village as the morning aged into afternoon. Sullen gray clouds hovered low over the marshlands, threatening more rain.

Still plenty enough light for me to tell where we were heading without trouble. The chapel soon clarified itself on its high hill. I could guess well enough why we went there. I kept myself marching, while inside my mind went into panic over what to do.

Those chimera the night I'd arrived in Caelfall had to have been assassins sent by the Baron to murder the demesne's last priest. They had failed thanks to my presence, and now I suspected he'd opted for a more simple tactic.

Still, sending killers in broad daylight? If he wanted to keep the villagers from discovering. his hand in the deed, why would Orson do it this way?

My silent turmoil was interrupted when Quinn sidled up next to me, falling back to match my pace. Our group had formed a loose line across the trail leading out from the village, giving us room to talk with relative privacy.

"Wanted to apologize for back there," he said with a quick smile. "Wouldn't have let them touch that barmaid. Just having a bit of fun."

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, and kept my silence.

Quinn coughed. "Well, anyway, I suppose you haven't been told what we're about?"

"No."

"Just like the vice-captain. Surly brute…" Quinn shrugged. "Well, there's a priest in that church up there."

"There are priests in most churches," I said philosophically.

"Right…" Quinn struggled to match my longer strides as he talked. "Well, this one's a problem. Been skittish ever since the last one bumped off. The Baron's worried he might get a message out in a prayer or something."

He paused before asking, "Can they really do that? Our band's from the continent. Things are different in the west. We have monsters aplenty, but these seraphs, these… gods?"

He frowned.

"Onsolain," I said. "They're servants and kinsfolk to God, but not quite gods themselves."

Quinn shrugged, as though to say what's the difference? "Sure."

"They can hear prayers," I admitted. "And they do watch the land. They can travel about in disguise, and they use lesser spirits as messengers and watchers. It's possible for a preost to communicate with them."

Quinn shivered. "Creepy."

"A ghoul thinks that's creepy?" I asked.

The mercenary tossed me a yellow-toothed grin, apparently taking no offense. "Nothing more natural than a man wanting to live, and to eat. We're not the first mob of killers to catch the grave hunger on campaign. The Mistwalkers have been in a lot of wars. There's always war in the continent."

His manner turned thoughtful. "Well, admittedly, it can be dark sometimes. But most times? I still live, still enjoy myself. Being undead isn't so bad."

I had nothing to say to that, though it did remind me of something else. "How do you know Catrin?"

Quinn glanced at me and raised a blond eyebrow. "Cat? Why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to understand why she helped me," I said. "She didn't know me, but stuck her neck out when your comrades thought I was an intruder. I asked her, but she didn't really give me an answer."

No, I thought. She did, you just didn't believe her.

Quinn ran a gloved hand through his blond goatee, considering. "Cat is…" he laughed. "Well, she's an enigma. One of the Keeper's girls, so it's no surprise."

"Who is this Keeper?" I asked. I'd heard his name a lot lately.

"No one really knows," Quinn said. "Not really. He runs the Backroad Inn. It's a sort of gathering place for the outcast and the misbegotten. Sorcerers, changelings, witches, hired killers, lost wanderers… they come and go, but their secrets tend to stay. The Keeper collects secrets and bargains with them."

"He sounds like a devil," I observed.

Again, Quinn let loose that easy laugh. "Maybe he is! As I said, no one knows. But he's been around a long time, and he's got a whole coterie of helpers. Cat's one of them. She serves drinks at the Backroad, entertains guests, and learns things for the Keeper to add to his collection."

His expression sobered and in a less easy tone he added, "I'd like to say she's harmless, but be careful what you tell her. They say the Keeper's used his secrets to bring kingdoms to ruin."

I frowned, considering this. How had I never heard of this man in all my years with the Table? Surely the knights, or at least the legion of scholars who dwelt in the Gilded City, would have known about some sort of dark spymaster lurking like a shadow in the land?

Then again, I'd never known all of their secrets, had I? Maybe they had known. The idea formed a bitter kernel in my thoughts.

"What's a barmaid doing here?" I asked. "Involved in all of this, I mean." I waved back in the vague direction of the castle.

"Haven't you been listening?" Quinn asked, grinning to take the edge off the words. "She's a spy, man. The Keeper's a spider, and she's one line of his web. The Baron could hardly deny him a part in all of this — the old crow's too well connected. But that doesn't mean his lordship or any of the others are happy to have the Keeper's fingers stuck in their business, so they go out of their way to disclude her."

I recalled the council's attitude towards her. It tracked.

"More than that," Quinn added as his voice took on a conspiratorial edge, "I hear it was the Keeper himself who got the invite to Orson's little party. So, him sending one of his wenches in his place…"

Quinn tossed a hand dismissively. "Well, she's not ordinary, but she serves drinks in a pub. Something of an insult, isn't it?"

I answered with a slow nod, chewing on these new details. Perhaps Catrin's opposition to the lord of House Falconer wasn't feigned, after all. Still, it set me ill at ease to think what kind of man this Keeper might be, to employ changelings as his eyes and ears.

"So how do you know her?" I asked. "You two seemed well acquainted."

Quinn coughed. I think there might have even been a blush touching his pallid cheeks. "Well, the regiment's made use of the Backroad more than once. Soldiers and ale, you know?"

More like soldiers and wenches. I kept my silence.

"And them?" I asked, nodding to the three brothers ahead of us. They lingered close to Vaughn, silent and grim as they trudged along the muddy road.

"The Mourner Brothers," Quinn said in a theatrically ominous tone.

That name, I certainly had heard. "Assassins."

"Indeed. Good at it, too."

"I thought they were all hanged not long after the war." I frowned. The Accord had made a big show of it, executing the infamous trio at Kingsmeet as a show of solidarity among several monarchs.

"That was the rumor," Quinn agreed. "Yet there they are."

Vaughn stopped then and turned, cutting our conversation short. The big soldier waited for our little band to gather up before speaking.

"Alright, here's the job."

He shifted, resting a hand on the heavy pommel of his broadsword. The chapel hill rose above us, the first short wall marking sacred ground rising just thirty paces behind the soldier.

"The priest up in that pile o' bricks is a problem, and the Baron wants it taken care of. Should be simple. Far as we know, the bastard's no true cleric, but sacred ground is sacred ground, and his predecessor apparently said his prayers every night. That's where you lot come in."

He nodded to me and William. "You two shouldn't have any trouble getting in there. Go say hello. We're not in a hurry, but don't dally."

William shuffled, checking his bowstring with a practiced hand. "What about them?" He tilted his chin toward the three brothers. One of them spat, glaring at the young hunter.

"The rest of us are going to surround the hill," Vaughn explained. "The new preoster has some guests, ones his lordship didn't invite. If any of them try to make a run for the woods, we'll have them."

"So we're playing the bloodhounds," William said, realizing the same thing I had. "Scaring them out of their refuge."

"Should be easy," Quinn piped in with a wide grin. "The church's gargoyles flapped off ages ago. Neither one of you are secretly undead or fiendish, right? Be awful embarrassing if we brought you for nothing."

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William shook his head, his expression distant as he focused on the church.

Deciding honesty wouldn't hurt me with this lot I said, "I'm an apostate, but it doesn't prevent me from entering holy ground. I'm just not supposed to." I shrugged.

One of the Cullers laughed. "Well, if you catch fire, there are plenty of ponds to leap into."

I looked to Vaughn. "We approached with plenty of light left. They'll have seen us already."

Inside, I was toying with the decision to kill all of them right here. I wouldn't kill the young priest, the doctor, or the girl. I wouldn't let any of these villains do it, either. How did I deal with this without blowing my cover?

Vaughn dashed all my hopes when he grinned, the expression near macabre as Quinn's manic smile. "Oh, I hope they have. I've had more of the Company spread across those fields since before dawn this morning. This isn't our first show."

I looked out over the misty, flooded fields. If the dead were hiding in those stagnant waters, and Olliard and his companions tried to make a run for it…

Damn. This was bad.

I glanced at the Cullers. If Vaughn had brought plenty of backup, and had me and William to invade the church, then what was their purpose?

I didn't like this, but the three in that chapel were lucky I'd been given a part. If the ghouls and other creatures the Baron had gathered couldn't invade sacred ground, then I could hold there. Not forever, but for a time.

"Fine," I said. "Let's get to it then."

"Not so fast." Vaughn stopped me, stepping into my path. We were of height, and he seemed an iron wall in his heavy armor. "Take this."

He handed me a curve horn, fashioned from some beast I couldn't readily name. Perhaps some western monster. It was an ugly thing, brown with strips of sickly white, banded in iron.

"They make a run, you sound this. Don't try and steal all the glory for yourself. You fuck us, I'll kill you."

I took the horn, then began to ascend the hill without any riposte. I suspected Vaughn would have his chance at my throat soon enough.

William and I walked up the trail to the chapel's front door side by side. I tucked the horn under my cloak, securing it at my belt. It made my hand itch, though I couldn't tell if the item was profane or if it just felt so having been held by the undead so long.

As we went, I focused on the ember of sacred fire in me. I'd kept my aura subdued since the previous night, wary of the dark things around me sensing too much about my nature. Karog had smelled the magic on me, which was disconcerting, and I hadn't wanted to risk any of the others getting more than a suspicion.

It had been easy enough to keep my powers low key, especially weak as I'd been. I stoked it now, anticipating battle. Not against the three in that church. Against the ones behind me.

I felt something from William as well. The young man seemed to shiver every few moments, as though from cold, and I felt a trembling pressure emanating from him. I got the distinct feeling of walking beside a dangerous predator all the sudden, something more instinctive and physical than any impression through my aura. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Vaughn had called him William Garou. A House name? Or a moniker?

"Let me do the talking," I told him as we walked.

"Suit yourself." His voice had become a gravely snarl, far different from the soft, almost boyish voice he'd had before.

He'd gotten angry at the inn when that Culler brother had made a crude pass at the innkeep's daughter. Could he be a potential ally? Should I risk outing myself to recruit him?

Wait until we're in the church, I decided. Out of sight of the others. Then I give him a choice.

We passed through the rows of grave stones climbing the hill, soon enough reaching the yard below the bell tower. My eyes scanned the building. Silent. Still.

I noticed something else, too. Or, more precisely, the absence of something.

William shuddered as we approached the steps leading up to the knave's front door. "You ready for this?" he asked. "Killing priests… even hard men can balk at that."

He said this with an eager hunger, as though he wanted me to back off and let him loose. His brown eyes had taken on a more amber gleam, not unlike the color of my own, though less clean.

Garou. I realized what he must be. "You're a lycanthrope." I frowned. "Are you going to need an invitation to get in?"

The laws protecting sacred ground and other thresholds were mostly for the dead, but changelings and other misbegotten creatures can be repelled by them as well.

William shook his head. His hair, which looked thicker and darker than it had, shook with the motion. "This is just my Art. It's a bit more unpleasant than most, but I'm human."

His aura was boiling. It took an effort of will not to step away from him and draw my weapon.

I stepped up to the door, reaching out for the auremark worked in faded gold into the oaken barrier. I paused, glanced at William to meet his bestial eyes.

"Don't do anything until I say," I ordered him.

He bared his teeth. "I don't take orders from you."

A shape had begun to congeal around him. Something with claws, horn-like protrusions or perhaps tufted ears, all hackles and spasming muscle. His soul, given shape.

I studied it a moment. This wasn't some undirected tool. His power was unrefined, rough, but very potent. He was practically salivating to hurl it at the innocent man inside this building.

This young man knew hate.

I nodded, turned, and pushed at the door. Locked.

"Let me," William Garou hissed.

"Don't waste your Art," I said. "This might not be the last barrier."

I closed my eyes, focused, and murmured a word of command. Not a spell. Apostate or no, I had once been of the Table, a holy knight.

Would it still matter? Even after I'd spilled that bishop's blood on his own altar?

Sacred gold and blessed oak answered my command, and the door unlatched at my touch. I wasn't certain whether to take that as reassurance or admonishment.

At the very least, it meant this was still hallowed ground.

We stepped inside. The darkened knave where I'd fought the chimeric owls greeted us. I could still make out the crack in the sacrificial bowl. The corpses, however, had been taken out, the bloodstains scrubbed clean. Otherwise, silence greeted us.

"Think they ran already?" William asked, his gleaming eyes searching the dark. "Out the back, maybe?"

"The Mistwalkers would have warned us," I said. I doubted the horn at my belt would be the only such device the ghouls carried.

I stepped closer to the altar, considered the silent church, then turned back to my companion.

"Stay here. I'll look around."

He started to protest, but I gave him a hard look and he fell quiet.

"If they make a run for it," I said, "I'd rather have you here where you can do something about it."

A weak excuse, but he accepted it. I took my time searching the church and its attached buildings, making certain of my hunch. I used the time to consider my options.

William had seemed a potential ally, but he was clearly unstable and eager for violence. He was also young, and might listen to reason. Did I risk it? Catrin had proven herself at odds with the baron. Perhaps there were other personal motives that might be turned against the renegade lord.

I was still chewing on it when I returned to the nave. William waited for me, impatient and angry, his magic flexing away from his body like a hound straining at its leash.

"Well?" He asked.

I licked my lips and glanced toward the doors. "They are gone. Probably before this trap was ever set."

William glared at me, confused. "How do you figure?"

I paused a moment, then made a choice.

"Because the two who were enjoying the church's protection came with a wagon and a chimera. The wagon is still out there, but the beast is gone. They've cleared off. Probably, they expected this."

Olliard had been invited here by the last preoster, who'd been feuding with the baron. My suspicion about him being more than an ordinary physician solidified into certainty.

Had he taken my warning to heart? Taken his apprentice and the monk and left Caelfall?

I doubted it.

William blinked, nonplussed for a moment. "How…"

He went very still a moment, then took a step back. The eerie sense of presence around him suddenly flexed and seemed to grow larger, like a wolf raising its hackles. "Wait… you arrived yesterday. Same time as those two… you know them."

I focused my attention on the younger man. "William, this situation is complicated. Earlier, you didn't like how those brigands acted. I think maybe you've got a sense of right and wrong in you, so I'll give you a choice."

I turned to face him fully. His back was to the still open door, but he held his ground. His confusion shifted more into anger by the second. I kept my own voice calm, my posture nonthreatening.

"The one the baron wants us to kill is an innocent monk," I said. "The other two are an old man and a young woman barely out of girlhood. They're decent people. I won't let them die for Orson Falconer's mad ambitions."

William's bright eyes flashed with fury. "Traitor."

"Traitor?" I tilted my head at him. "Boy, this whole mad gathering are Recusant leftovers, the same powers who waged war against the faithful Houses of the Ardent Bough. They are the traitors."

It was the wrong thing to say. William's eyes widened further. "Karog was right. You are a spy."

"I don't serve the Accord," I said, taking a step closer to him. He tensed. I went still. If he bolted, and I didn't catch him before he made it outside…

"You want to save that fucking preacher," William snarled. Again, the power unfolding from him roiled. It was a disconcerting image, like he'd split double, only the double didn't resemble anything human and my eyes struggled to fix on it.

"I have no reason to kill him," I hardened my voice. "Neither do you."

"I have every reason!"

William's voice came out as an inhuman bellow, blaring through the chapel as two voices.

He's not in sync with his own aura, I realized as I watched him. It's influencing him as much as he's directing it.

I had some experience with that.

I kept calm as I took another step forward. "I am willing to hear them." I began to draw my axe from its belt loop, hiding the motion with my cloak.

"Who are you?" He demanded. Then, shaking his head he said, "No, doesn't matter. Where are they?"

"I don't know," I said honestly.

"Liar!"

He lashed out with one hand, his fingers forming claws. The boiling phantom around him made the same motion, only it had far more reach, and its claws were sharp as iron.

Rather than recoiling I shot forward, freeing my axe from the folds of my cloak in the same motion. I ducked, letting that wild swing go over my head. Its heat prickled at my neck, set my hair to fluttering, but missed me. I imagine there wouldn't have been much left but a bloody smear had it connected.

I flew forward in relative silence compared to his echoing snarls and whirling, wind-shearing claws. Only the quiet ripple of my cloak marked my forward momentum. I took my axe in both hands, went low as he tried to reform his broken phantasm for another attack — it had come undone with his miss, his concentration breaking.

Strong as his power was, William's magic wasn't truly an Art — not yet, anyway. It was on the cusp of forming one, but for now it remained unstable phantasm, rippling in and out of reality.

More, he had warned me of its every movement through his display of rage. He had a rare power, but little refinement. Perhaps, in time, he might have cultivated that into something truly dreadful, a weapon for the likes of Orson Falconer to unleash on the realms.

I never gave him the chance to fulfill that dark destiny. I stamped a boot on the chapel floor, pushed off, and swung in the same motion. My axe parted the air with a sound almost like a cough.

I slid a ways past him before I came to a stop. He started to say something, his voice young and confused. I straightened, letting out a slow breath.

He hit the floor with a muted thump behind me.

I hadn't killed him instantly. He groaned, writhing on the floor as he tried to stand. I turned, unhurried, and approached the lad. His struggles were leaving red stains all over the stone.

I'd carved a gash across his stomach. A lethal wound, and a bad way to die. He glared at me, his eyes normal now and full of confusion. When he spoke, blood burbled up from his throat. He couldn't form the words.

"I would have heard your story," I told him. "It didn't have to be like this."

He had a dagger at his belt. He was trying to reach for it, but his struggles were weakening.

A long succession of kings, knights, and angels stared at the scene from the chapel's decorated walls. I accepted their judgement, and watched William Garou's life leave him.

"—Elp…" All the anger left William's face in a rush, replaced by terror. He hacked up more blood, freeing whatever clot had choked him. "No… but I haven't…"

What am I doing? I grit my teeth, lifted my axe, and swung. The young man's struggles stopped. I knelt, heedless of the blood soaking into my clothes, and closed his eyes. All the while, I fought against the surge of self loathing and disgust threatening to choke me. I failed, and vomited.

After I'd wiped my mouth, I made myself look at the empty, frightened eyes of the boy I'd just killed. Eighteen at most, now I saw him without that mask of mature confidence he'd kept.

"Who were you, William Garou?" I asked him the question, but he couldn't answer anymore.

It is much easier to slay the minions of darkness when you have not seen their humanity.