Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 12

Jacqueline Fassett’s reaction to Clara’s ‘information’ was markedly pronounced. In the shadows of the night, at roughly the same time that Clara’s escorting Shadow Demon returned to Ludmila to receive new orders, the windows of darkened buildings glowed with dim light and sounds of activity began to spill out from the streets and alleys: filling the air over the town with the quiet din of horses and people preparing in large numbers.

With the idea that something would happen to the various shady elements identified around the town, House Fassett’s tangle of connections were made plain before her eyes as they reorganized themselves to avoid potential trouble. Though she could not hear what was being said from street to street, their actions were clear enough as whole blocks came to life, full of rough men and women unified with this single purpose in mind.

Clara had wanted to make one last effort to sway the stubborn daughter of House Fassett, only leaving behind the information that would set off their ploy in the event of her failure to do so. The reaction to this news came in visible waves of activity that rippled out from the Fassett manor. Ludmila knew what to roughly expect as the reaction had been projected in advance of their meeting yet, while she was looking down at the web of associations identified on the map in the pavilion, there was still a small corner of her mind that refused to believe things were entirely as they appeared.

This feeling of doubt sloughed off of her with every warehouse, tavern and common house emptied. Jacqueline Fassett had clearly panicked at the news, and now it seemed she was trying to remove every shred of evidence of her activities that she could. Wagons were loaded with men and cargo, though the Shadow Demons dispatched to track them reported that everything was simply being shifted out of the way to nearby hamlets. Disbelief was replaced by a simmering mood as more and more of the Shadow Demons’ reports coalesced to paint the picture of men and materials streaming away from the town – at this point it seemed that over half of the population and most of the materials being stored had been deemed too risky to expose to the supposed audit.

Ludmila no longer made any attempts to justify the movements with other, innocuous reasons. Each report simply became a point to revisit in detail once the commotion died down.

“I’ve heard enough,” she finally said to the Shadow Demons reporting to her. “Take your information to the camp and keep working with them to keep track of where everything is being directed.”

Tamping down on the dull sense of irritation that had built up with every report, she remained at her concealed position near the western gate, watching carts and wagons trickle away into the night. An hour later, just as she thought the flow of goods and people had ended, the hollow rattle of an empty wagon drew her attention to a nearby street.

Two mottled draft horses appeared, drawing an uncovered wagon with a single driver. As it trundled by, Ludmila saw that the bed of the vehicle was entirely bare. While she pondered the way it stood distinct from the other, laden wagons, it stopped just outside of the open gate. She strained her ears as the driver leaned over to speak to one of the sentries in low tones, but could only hear low murmuring between them.

After a short conversation, the driver straightened in his seat and the sentry hopped on beside him. One of the men above on the gatehouse dropped down from a ladder and jogged up to pull himself into the back of the wagon. They started rolling forward again.

“Hey, wait up!” A voice called out after them.

The two remaining sentries manning the gate scrambled to climb on board; the wagon slowed for them just long enough to do so before continuing on its way.

“Did they just abandon their post?” She muttered, aghast.

Despite everything she had seen, Ludmila was still dismayed at their act. At her feet, the Shadow Demon’s eyes gleamed.

“Unforgivable,” its voice drifted up at her. “Shall I slay them?”

She agreed with the Demon’s sentiment, but something was still off.

“Let’s see what they’re up to for now,” she replied. “If they planned on running away, they should have left with what goods they could find from the town…but there was nothing loaded in the wagon that I could see. There must be something more valuable that they’re reserving space for.”

Ludmila was unable to read its reaction to her reply through its inhuman expression. At the least, it did not appear to oppose her line of thought entirely.

“Follow them and see where they end up,” she ordered.

The Demon remained near her feet, shaking its head.

“This one cannot comply,” it said. “Lady Shalltear has prioritized your safety: the risk is too great in this location for you to remain without escort.”

“Even the ones that manage to spot me don’t dare approach,” Ludmila said. “I don’t think there’s that much of a risk.”

The Shadow Demon shrugged, unconvinced by her argument.

While suspicious figures did occasionally show up to look at her from other dark vantages throughout the evening, all it really took was her staring pointedly back at them for a moment to have them turn away. Oblivious to her Talent, all they understood was that the capability to detect concealed individuals of their calibre was a sign of a strong individual with scouting abilities. Her Iron tag aside, someone that could instantly notice these hidden observers in the darkness should be around the strength of a Mithril-rank Adventurer. They would not dare to try their luck with such a person who was already armed and alert to their presence.

This reasoning did not seem to matter to her shadowy escort, however. The servants of the Sorcerer King and those of his vassals only appeared to consider differences in direct strength, and make their judgements based on that sort of correlation. She had tried to send her escort out to investigate several times when the others were already set to their own tasks, but it doggedly refused to leave her unprotected.

Ludmila appreciated the knowledge that her liege was looking out for her, but she had long grown accustomed to ordering Humans, Undead and Demons around so it was quite jarring the first time she was refused that night.

“Then we’ll go take a look together, I guess.”

Lifting the longbow from her lap and grabbing her spear from where it rested against the box, she hopped off of her seat in pursuit of the strangely empty wagon. Stopping just past the threshold of the gate, she spotted the vehicle slowly making its way through the darkness along the continued curve of the highway. After confirming her quarry, she turned around to look at the unmanned gatehouse.

“I still can’t believe they just left the gate undefended like that,” she grumbled. “Help me close this thing.”

It only took a couple of minutes to close the gate. She heard the bar fall on the other side, and the Shadow Demon floated through the door. Turning back to the road, she saw the wagon still rolling along in the distance at its cautious pace.

Rather than follow the pavement, Ludmila cut through the forests alongside it to close the gap between them. In the weeks following the new development in her demesne, her skills as a Ranger had significantly improved as she patrolled the forested slopes of Warden’s Vale to keep the work of her new tenants and labourers unimpeded by wilderness hazards. Now, she could make her way through the thick undergrowth as quickly as a regular person could travel over a grassy plain.

The wagon’s passengers idly scanned their surroundings as she trailed them through the nearby trees. With only a bare sliver of the moon and the dim lantern hanging from the wagon providing illumination, their gazes passed over her regularly, completely unaware of her presence. They continued for several kilometres before the wagon pulled over on the roadside. The men in the back hopped off to load several dozen sacks that had been left covered on the other side of the ditch that ran alongside the highway. The wagon bed was nearly filled before it lurched back onto the road to continue on its way.

Following them a short distance to the west, the cobblestones turned to clay and Ludmila stopped to watch the men shrink into the distance. Rather than escape to the nearby hamlets of Fassett County, this group had fled the Sorcerous Kingdom entirely, disappearing into the neighboring Kingdom of Re-Estize.

The Shadow Demon rose to its full height beside her.

“...kill?” Its voice was tinged with anticipation.

“Beyond lies Re-Estize,” Ludmila let out a sigh. “This is as far as we can go.”

In hindsight, she should have realized where the wagon was inevitably heading and cut their journey short before they crossed the border. It would have been a simple matter to kill or cripple all of the men: between her Talent and her longbow, it was an entirely one sided ambush in the darkness – the Shadow Demon did not even need to get involved.

“...Camilla?” The Shadow Demon’s voice drifted over her.

Her cheek twitched at the mention of the name bestowed upon her by Lady Shalltear, and its weight bore down on her. Did she really make the right decision? What did it mean to be an extension of Lady Shalltear’s will – to be her liege’s disciple and assist in carrying out her duties?

...a Defender of His Majesty’s Realm, the first lance to be directed against those who would oppose His Will, both within and without.

Those that would dare to bring harm to what is His shall be granted no quarter…

“Kill them,” Ludmila commanded. “His Majesty’s Will is not to be denied.”

The Shadow Demon flickered away.

Ludmila closed her eyes and let out a breath into the cool night air.

Backtracking to the roadside where the men had paused to load their cargo, she looked around to see if she could find any evidence of what the wagon had hauled away. There was nothing left in the depression of grass, but there was a trail which extended into the forest. This far from the town, she could hear the wildlife in the night all around her – a comforting blanket of noise that brought with it familiar sensations that reminded her of her own fief.

The Shadow Demon appeared before her again.

“It is done,” it said.

“Good work,” Ludmila nodded. “What of the bodies?”

The Shadow Demon frowned at her words, tilting its head curiously.

“Those men were subjects of the Sorcerous Kingdom,” she told the Shadow Demon. “Their corpses belong to His Majesty. Pile them in the wagon and roll it back across the border. I wanted to see what they were hauling anyway. I’ll be checking on something in the meanwhile.”

The Shadow Demon flickered away again, and Ludmila turned her attention back to the path leading into the woods, musing over her last set of instructions.

One of the very first of the new laws, unassociated with those of Re-Estize, drafted by the Royal Court was the legislation that claimed all of its subjects’ corpses as the property of the Sorcerous Kingdom. In return, the administration offered to pay what was normally associated with burial expenses and funerary rites to the next of kin.

Ludmila recalled Bishop Austine’s chuckle when she had gone to ask for his thoughts on it. Apparently the Temple of the Four could do nothing but fume silently, and many of their worshippers took the money anyways. As for the Temple of the Six: they didn’t care. Unless resurrection services were in order, a corpse was just a corpse; the souls of humanity were in Surshana’s keeping once they passed beyond life. As far as the Bishop was concerned, this new measure was yet another blessing for the faith of The Six.

Her steps followed the path deep into the woods, until she suddenly came upon a solid line between the forest and a field of waist-high plants waving in the wind all the way to the horizon. With the division between nations marked by the highway before, Ludmila assumed that this, too, was the border between the Sorcerous Kingdom and Re-Estize. The field should have been some sort of crop cultivated by the tenants of the baron on the other side of the border, but there were several oddities that were immediately apparent.

Unsurprisingly, there was no one to be seen in the huge field in the middle of the night: all there was was the lamp of the returning wagon further along the highway, which ran along the length of the field. In the distance, she could see the first village of the neighboring barony in Re-Estize sitting on a ridge along the highway. This was decidedly strange, as farming hamlets were generally spaced well within viewing distance of the fields that they cultivated: much closer than the distant village that she spotted. The way the paths ran through the field nearby and the way the crop had been collected suggested that it was actually being harvested and brought into Fassett County, through the point where she currently stood.

The people from Fassett County were growing crops using the land of the neighboring Baron – either that or they were stealing it – and whether they had the lord’s permission or some sort of lease to use the land was not apparent. It was also possible that the nobles administering the land across the border were entirely oblivious to what was going on at the edge of their territory. Leaning down, she picked several bundles of the unfamiliar plants that had grown like weeds into the treeline, placing them into a pouch attached to her belt before returning to the highway.

The rumble of the wagon greeted her as she left the trees and entered the roadside ditch. She waited for the vehicle to come to a stop before her before climbing onto the back. The four dead men were laid out on the wagon bed, so she had to step over them to reach their cargo. Checking through several of the large bags, she found the same plants as she had on the field. Collecting a few samples regardless, she hopped off the wagon again.

“I’ll have to arrange some way to get these dead men to wherever they need to go,” Ludmila told the Shadow Demon. “Let’s get back to camp for now.”

No new vehicles came from the town, and the gate remained undisturbed from when she had closed it. Skirting around the walls, the sounds of activity from before had ceased, and Fassett Town once again appeared to be asleep. She made a point of staying clear of the south gate with its single watchful sentry. Looking up the way to the distant encampment, she breathed a sigh of relief when nothing appeared to be amiss. It was time to find out how well their ploy had worked.