Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Vanya returned within an hour with an aged man dressed as a monk, save for the apron and belt of tools he wore over his brown robes. I left him with Emma and Vanya in the young noble’s bedroom, feeling useless and guilty.

It didn’t matter at all that I’d been defending myself from Emma’s magic. She was barely more than a child, and I’d let her goad me into that duel. I’d been dismissive and surly, knowing it ate at her pride — I’d dealt with nobles before, and knew what might happen. I hadn’t cared. I’d been so angry at this situation with Nath’s request, upset at what had happened in the Fane with Ser Maxim, and…

And I made excuses. I’d wanted to take the girl down a peg. I’d shown off, toyed with her, and made it seem like I did so easily. I couldn’t deny I’d been at least in part malicious, intentionally poking at her pride until she’d snapped.

I walked outside. A light rain had begun to fall, but the grassy field where Emma and I had sparred still seemed vibrant and bright, as though caught in beams of post-storm sunlight. The grass seemed sharper, almost metallic. We’d both used a lot of aura, and it lingered in the world, dramatizing it. It would fade before long.

I picked up my cloak from where I’d discarded it on the grass, then found my axe. I hooked the weapon onto the back of my hauberk, securing it in the iron ring there, then tossed my cloak over one shoulder without putting it on. I sighed, collecting myself, and turned back to the manor.

A figure leaned against the porch, watching me with bright green eyes from beneath the brim of a tricorn.

“You’re… Qoth.” I remembered what Emma had called the coachman.

Qoth’s expression remained unreadable, between the cloth bandanna and shady hat. I couldn’t even tell if they were a man or woman. They were small, slight, made bulkier by the layered garments and heavy coat.

“You going to take umbrage with me for hurting your lady?” I asked, more resigned than challenging.

“Nah.” Qoth’s light, slightly muffled voice seemed oddly chipper. “Good show, though. Haven’t seen Emma that angry in a while.” Their green eyes sparkled with interest, and perhaps a bit of mirth.

Discomforted by the strange servant, I decided to change the subject. “Why doesn’t Lord Brenner have any guards here?” I asked.

Qoth shrugged, folding their arms. “He tried. Emma knew he was more interested in keeping eyes on her than keeping her safe. She played up the Devil Child angle, and soon enough none of the locals would come near this place, even the lord’s men-at-arms. He sends knights sometimes, has more patrols in this area, but he got the message eventually. Even that physiker Vanya brought is only here because he owes her a favor. Honestly, if not for Vanya, we’d be living a lot harder out in this back country. Woman’s a lot more capable than she looks.”

Remembering my brief conversation with the maidservant, I didn’t doubt it. “And what’s Brenner’s interest in the young lady?” I asked. “Orphaned scion of a dead House… what’s his angle?”

Qoth, as I might have expected, just shrugged. I’d mostly asked the question just to ask it, not expecting the coach driver to have any knowledge or interest in politics.

The physik emerged a while later, looking nervous and a touch angry. “The girl will live,” he told me. “But she’s lost much blood. I’d keep her abed for the next week. Change her bandages regularly, and use the antiseptic I left in her room. She’s resting now.” His expression became stern. “And, by the love of the Heir, use practice swords when you’re sparring. Of all the irresponsible…”

With that, the physik departed in haste, grumbling and casting wary looks back over his shoulder. My own neck still bled too. He hadn’t even so much as blinked at it, in his hurry to leave. Qoth glanced at me and lifted their dark eyebrows, as though to say see?

I narrowed my eyes at the chimera handler. “And what about you?”

Qoth had produced an apple from their coat. They rubbed it on their sleeve, inspected it critically, then tucked it back under one arm without lowering their bandanna to take a bite. “What about me?”

“For one thing, what are you?”

Qoth went still.

I maintained eye contact, more certain the longer I trained my golden eyes on the servant’s own. “You’re not human,” I said. “Or at least, not entirely. Your aura has a strange sense to it, and you keep slipping away from my vision when I’m not focusing on you, like a shadow.”

Qoth spread their hands out wide, the black sleeves of their coat flaring out like crow wings. “Then what do you think I am, O’ Knight?”

I studied the figure another long moment, trying to see through the glamour I sensed about them. “You’re Emma’s familiar,” I said at last, certain of it even as I said the words. “Some kind of Briar faerie.”

Qoth studied me perhaps half a minute, saying nothing, green eyes intense. Then, with slow deliberation, they took off their tricorn and lowered their mask. Black hair cascaded down, and sharp green teeth flashed in a too-wide grin — not from a human face, but an elongated muzzle. I thought at first that a green jewel had been embedded into the creature’s forehead, but as it blinked at me I understood it to be a large, inhuman eye. Pointed ears poked from the mane of dark hair as it fell into place.

The coachman dipped into an elaborate, courtly bow. His arms had become longer, his legs more bowed. His voice changed when he spoke next, becoming refined, losing some of that lowborn human dialect he’d been feigning. “Qoth of the Green Eye. At your service, O’ Alder Knight.”

I lifted my chin. “You’re one of Nath’s.”

The Briar elf chittered. The sound had a disturbingly insectile quality. “For now, I belong to the girl. I am her eyes, her ears, and her fangs if need be. As you said — I am her familiar. Every self-respecting warlock has one, or didn’t you know?”

I shrugged. “I admit, it’s not a tradition I’ve much experience in.”

“Yes,” Qoth said dryly. “I imagine you busied yourself hunting them, mostly.”

I studied the Briarfae a moment longer. “Does Emma know who I am?” I asked. “What I am?”

Qoth shook his too-large head. “Nath did not reveal aught of your identity to the child. Secrets of that sort have power, Ser Knight, and are not given lightly.”

No doubt Nath would leverage that indulgence against me, eventually. Snorting, I turned away.

“Where are you going?” Qoth asked, seeing me don my cloak.

I rolled my shoulders, wincing as I pulled at the cut on my neck. It had already scabbed, and would turn into little more than scar tissue in an hour or two — I may not have been able to heal others anymore, but my own fast healing still worked well enough. “I’m not going to sit around waiting for this revenant to make its move,” I said. “If its activity is concentrated in this fief, then I should be able to find signs of it.”

“Will you join Lord Hunting’s hunt?” Qoth asked, giggling at the wordplay.

I considered the idea. I didn’t have any faith that a provincial lord and his entourage could track down a living curse on their own, but he’d had the knight-exorcist. Ser Kross might have a few tricks up his sleeve.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’d like to learn what I can on my own for now.”

“And if we are attacked here?” Qoth asked, twisting his head to one side.

“Emma said the revenant hasn’t ever attacked her directly.” I folded my arms, thinking. “Course, that doesn’t mean it won’t…”

I wish I had a priest. A proper cleric could ward the manor, keep even the most potent of spirits from intruding. Every home in Urn is protected by ancient tradition, and few Things of Darkness, either fey or fell, can overcome the powers worked into the very land itself.

But those magics had become less reliable since the Fall. For a moment, indecision caught me. My instincts told me to go on the offensive, but my knightly training told me to protect the girl, guard the hearth.

“She should be safe enough behind a threshold,” I said at last, hardening my resolve. Not a knight anymore, I reminded myself. “I’ll return by morning.”

Qoth inclined his elfin head, once again donning his tricorn and mask. “As you wish. Good hunting, O’ Headsman.”

***

I walked through a field of graves. Red bled across the sky, revealed by the scattering rainclouds. Far to the south, lightning still flickered across the horizon. The air had turned damp and cool, forming a low-clinging mist I suspected would only thicken as night fell.

Shades curled through that mist, murmuring unintelligibly. I ignored them, scanning the rows for what I sought. I strode through one of the many free-standing graveyards scattered across the countryside. This one had no church, only a small shrine. The shrine’s auremark had been stolen. I almost pitied the thief who’d done that, and wondered just how desperate someone had to be to risk the wrath of the dead for some blessed gold.

Perhaps I wasn’t one to talk, considering I was willing to risk their wrath for a bit of information.

I found what I sought soon enough. At the center of the graveyard, as in all such throughout Urn, there stood a single well. Mottled statuary carved into the shape of two saints beckoned me forward with ivy-wrapped fingers. My eyes were drawn also to the images of winged seraphs worked into the outer walls of the well.

When had it become strange, to see the larger-than-life Onsolain rendered so small in art? I’d thought nothing of it, once.

I circled the well once, reaching out with my magical senses. I felt no apparent danger or corruption. I felt very little at all, save from the rising fog where ghosts watched with half-formed faces. Peeking down, I sniffed. Dry.

Well, I’d have to hope it would suit my purpose. I fished around at my belt and produced a single large, gleaming silver coin. I held it up, letting the last rays of the sinking sun glint off its contours. On one face a drowsy skull had been etched into the metal, and on the other a circle of runes. Aloud I began to murmur, my voice becoming a rhythmic, lulling monotone.

“By pacts of old I ask a boon, so hear me, Ye’ Dead.”

“I ask that ye’ return now, from the umbral lands where ye’ make thy bed.”

“I offer this as payment, a coin of silver from the moon.”

“May it guide you through the shadows, and may the Gates reopen soon.”

Not quite the sacred rite a priest might use, but it felt more true to me. I took a deep breath, then tossed the gleaming coin of azsilver into the well. I spread my hands out, letting my cloak unfold like a pair of ruddy wings. “I seek your council, shades of Draubard. Accept my gift and return to the lands of the living.”

Silver is precious to the Dead. I didn’t hear the coin strike the well’s bottom. I waited a long moment, eyes half closed, then shivered as a chill wind swept through the grave rows, stirring my cloak.

“I have not heard that rhyme in many years. Not since I was a girl.”

Without opening my eyes I said, “my mother taught it to me when I was a boy. It’s one of the few things I still remember about her.”

“Then you know the pain of losing a mother.”

I lifted my eyes to the figure who now stood on the other side of the well. She seemed half formed of the mist, standing out from it only by her stillness. I couldn’t see much of her — she wore a funeral gown, all spider-silk white, a nearly transparent shawl hanging down over her face. In death-gray hands she held a farmer’s scythe, its haft dramatically curved, the blade badly rusted.

“I know you,” I said to the ghost. “You’re the Lady of Strekke. Emery Planter’s wife.”

The shrouded head inclined slightly in acknowledgement.

“You returned to the Underworld?” I asked her.

“After you murdered my husband, the cave elves came to take us back down into the depths.” The Lady of Strekke’s dry hands crackled as she tightened her grip on the macabre tool. The mist boiled around her, writhing with strange, disturbing shapes, and her voice emanated from the surrounding mist as a hollow whisper. “You left my son without his mother. Without his father. Now my lord-husband’s spirit wanders adrift through the hinterlands of this world, denied the honored place in the Lands Below owed to him as a lord of Urn.

“Your husband went Recusant,” I said, shifting back a step. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and the air felt very cold. “He wouldn’t have had sanctuary in Draubard no matter how he died.”

“But we would have had time.” The ghost’s voice became a teeth-aching hiss, a dire wind that froze my blood. “We would have been able to prepare my child for the woes of this world, to make him strong. Now he sits alone on a cold throne, devoid of those who love him. You did this to us.”

I’d made a mistake. This was no ordinary shade, no Underworld saint offering wise council in return for my offer of silver. I’d known the restless dead were drawn to me, lured by the consecrated fire in me, but I’d hoped I could perform a simple communion rite without too much risk.

Nothing could ever be goring simple.

“You are bound by the laws of the dead,” I said, letting my voice grow cold as hers. “You’ve accepted my offer of silver. I have questions, which you will answer. Once we’re done here, you will return to the Underworld.”

A chuckle dry as desert graves escaped the dead noblewoman’s lips. “You need not convince me, Headsman.”

I swallowed. I knew better than to let her get to me — my fear could make her stronger. The silver I’d offered and this conversation made her dangerous enough. It was the same as inviting her past a home’s threshold, or letting her sit at my campfire. That invitation empowered the Dead. I’d just have to hope the rites and laws that bound her kind still held strong enough to keep me safe through a brief conversation.

That order had once been ironclad. Nowadays… I kept my guard up, just in case.

“There is a dark spirit at large in this land,” I said, once I’d settled my nerves. “I want to know what the Dead can tell me about it.”

“There are many dark spirits in this land,” the Lady of Strekke intoned, almost gleefully.

I let some steel creep into my voice, along with a bit of magic. “You know of whom I speak. The Burnt Rider, the one who haunts the bloodline of House Carreon. What does Draubard know of him?”

The ghost flinched at the touch of the aura in my voice. “You speak of the Heir of House Orley.” She paused a while, growing very still. Then, whisper-quiet she said, “yes, the Dead know of him, though we do not claim him.”

I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“You will see.”

Clenching my jaw in frustration, I decided to let that comment go for the time being. The ghostly noble could keep me talking in circles without ever gaining anything of real use, and I suspected her of being fully willing to engage in malicious compliance. “Fine,” I growled. “Tell me more about this revenant. Who is he? Who was he?”

The ghost’s chortle echoed in the fog, making it seem as though a congregation of shades mocked me. “You do not even know the sins committed by the family you defend! Oh, what a rich hypocrisy. You ruin my House for our blasphemies, and defend another despite theirs. Do you not see the cracks in the foundation you seek to uphold, O’ Headsman?”

I’d had enough of the ghost’s poison. “Speak,” I ordered.

The laughter died, and the spirit seemed to drift further away from me. She hugged her farmer’s scythe close, as though for comfort. “Very well. I will tell you a tale, then, so you may know your folly.”

“Once, in the Westvales, there were two great families. The mightiest, the most feared, was the High House of Carreon. They were called the Shrikes. For their penchant for impalement, you see?”

I said nothing, remembering the phantasmal spears Emma had conjured and her fell name for them. Perhaps she hadn’t been the one to name that inherited magic.

“The second power in the west were the lords of House Orley,” the Lady of Strekke continued. “Half the lesser houses swore to Carreon, half to Orley. For many generations, they were in balance… yet they warred incessant. The hatred between those families ran deep as red seas.”

“A blood feud,” I said. “Damn.”

“Damned indeed,” the ghost hissed. “And dark was the end of that sanguine tale. It came to pass that a proposal for peace was arranged. A bond to end the feud, and bring the two powers of the Westvales together. A union of blood and dynasties.”

A cold that had nothing to do with the ghostly mist began to creep through me. Trepidation. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like where this tale traveled. “A marriage,” I whispered.

“So common among my kind,” the Lady of Strekke said, her voice becoming pondering. “Such a simple proposal, but mutual enmity had kept either side from extending that olive branch. The Carreon patriarch of the time offered his eldest daughter, then a young woman, to be wed to the young heir of House Orley, at the time an accomplished warrior despite his youth. The Orleys were House Carreon’s equal in the arts of war, shrewd in diplomacy, blessed in allies. The lord’s heir was well loved, by the commonfolk and lesser houses sworn to his family alike.”

A ghoulish smile scarred the dead face I could just barely see through the dead woman’s veil. “But the Orleys had one weakness the Carreon lord was all too happy to take advantage of. A sense of honor. Orley valued the old ways, the ancient customs of the Edaean Kings of old. Offers of marriage are sacred, and would have joined both houses as one. They had every reason to believe the offer to be genuine.”

“The two families, and many of their vassal Low Houses, came together at the fortress monastery of Tol for the ceremony. The marriage took place. Then, on her wedding night, the Carreon bride slit the Orley heir’s throat in their marriage bed. That same night, traitors hidden among House Orley’s vassals and allies made their move even as the Carreon armies mobilized. They massacred their rival. They besieged and dismantled their castles. House Orley was destroyed, down to the last babe, the last maidservant, and displayed along the roads of the Westvales on pikes.”

The Lady of Strekke bowed her head, again cradling the enormous scythe. “Don’t you see? That is Emma Carreon’s legacy. That is the abomination you protect.”

“It’s a dark tale,” I agreed. “But this happened a long time ago. Emma’s not responsible for her ancestors’ crimes.”

“Wrong,” the ghost hissed. “The land remembers. The Dead do not forget. The scion of House Carreon carries her families’ sins in her blood even as she carries their magic. The Carreons trespassed against the sanctity of the Heir of Heaven’s own laws, and all that bloodline will pay the price. He will come for her, and drag her soul into the flames. Just as you too are bound for the Fire for your own blasphemy.”

I squeezed my left eye shut as a flare of pain went through the four long grooves carved there from temple to cheek. I held a hand to them, gritting my teeth against the pain.

“Yes!” The Lady of Strekke seemed to grow larger within the swirl of mist, rising to seven feet, eight, stretching into something out of nightmare. “The Dead know of your sins as well, Alken Hewer, Knight of the Alder Table! We know of your blasphemous lust, of the role you played in the burning of Seydis. We know of the evil you courted, the betrayal you allowed to pass!”

“I didn’t know.” I stumbled, still clutching at my burning eye. The lie tasted like ash on my tongue. “I didn’t know.”

I didn’t reply to the ghost, didn’t care what she thought of me. I heard the echo of Ser Maxim’s own pitiful wails in my own voice, when he’d succumbed to the golden ghosts in his thoughts. The same ones who haunted me.

Images flashed through my mind, burning as sharply as my scars in that moment. My captains encircling the Archon’s fallen form, their own blades in his back. Gilded towers burning, hundreds of voices screaming, cackling demons glutting themselves on death. A woman’s face — a stranger’s face — caught between grief and fury.

A sword in my hand, covered in smoking blood. I hadn’t held a sword since that day.

“You cannot lie to the dead.” The ghost continued to grow, her features distorting. The scythe had become a crooked guillotine in her skeletal hands. “There will be no redemption for you, oathbreaker, no peace! We will haunt you to the ends of Existence. I will never forgive you for murdering my husband, for orphaning my son!”

I fought through the visions, bringing myself back to the graveyard. “You can’t touch me,” I told the ghost. “The Law of Draubard—”

“Does not hold me!” The Lady of Strekke cackled. She resembled nothing human anymore. “I escaped the clutches of the drow! And I did not accept your silver.”

My eyes caught a gleaming shape on the withered grass. My azsilver coin.

The noblewoman’s ghost rose above me, towering, wispy veil turned into a tattered crown of writhing mist about a stretched, ghoulish face. The rusted blade she held in her hand was as transparent as her, but it gleamed with od — its edge would cut true. Lesser ghosts boiled in the mist, murmuring, pressing in on me in the dozens.

“I am Lorena Starling,” the ghost boomed. “And I will have my revenge, Headsman.”