Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-1.35: The Headsman’s Mien

Once the ghouls had retreated into the mist encircling the chapel hill, I closed my eyes and made myself breathe. I mediated on my vows. Not just the ones I’d made to that elf tree, but those I’d sworn to my queen as well. The ones that’d made me a knight before I’d been wrapped up in all this horror and myth.

I knew Catrin watched me, but she’d seen this before. She didn’t interfere, or get too close and risk getting hurt. After several minutes, I had the fire under control.

When I opened my eyes, I turned to the dhampir and spoke in a soft voice. “I thought you’d betrayed me.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “No way I was going to stall all those marrow eaters on my own, big man. I knew you could handle yourself. Just needed to pick my moment.”

She glanced at me, then at the corpses, then back to her blade. In a hesitant tone she said, “I did consider abandoning you. If the Mistwalkers thought you dealt with, it might have given me my shot at the baron.” She blew a stray lock of brown hair out of her eyes. “But I figured my chances were better with you alive, so I stuck around.”

Catrin reclined against the edge of the old fence lining one part of the church yard. Edgar, or perhaps Micah, had kept a little garden there. It would go untended now, and already ivy crept from its bounds. She had one ankle crossed beneath her long skirts, an elbow propped on the fence.

The image of casual indifference. Her eyes were on her elven blade, distant and aloof.

Her mask cracked when I went down on one knee at her side, that neutrality scattering into shock.

“Hey, big man, what are you…” A nervous laugh escaped Catrin’s lips. “I’m flattered, really, but it’s just so sudden!”

“I owe you an apology,” I said, ignoring her jest. I bowed my head, just as I might have done before a great lady in the court of a High House. “I’ve treated you with suspicion and distrust this entire time. Twice I nearly attacked you, and my words and thoughts have been… unkind.”

I lifted my face to meet her gaze. “You’ve saved my life twice. Even if you hadn’t, my behavior was not worthy. Please, forgive me.”

Catrin’s cheeks were bright pink. “You don’t have to be so dramatic about it, big man, I forgive you. Bleeding Gates, you really are some shining knight, aren’t you? I’m not one of your high ladies, so there’s no need to—”

I shook my head, voice firm. “Yes. There is a need. I owe you, and you’re the only ally I have in all of this.”

“Well…” Catrin’s expression turned sly. “Tell you what, you do something for me and I’ll call us even.”

I hesitated, my contrition evaporating as trepidation took its place. “What?”

Catrin hopped off the fence and patted at her castle gown, like a village woman brushing off her apron. “Call me Cat. Not vampire, or bloodsucker, or malcathe. None of that.” She met my eyes. “Just Cat. It’s what I prefer friends call me.”

Friends. When was the last time I had one of those?

I stood and looked down at her. “I’m not sure you want me as a friend. This…”

I gestured at all the carnage. Ghoul bodies, smoldering and butchered, lay scattered in front of the chapel. “This is the world I live in.”

“Al…” Catrin — Cat — sighed and patted my elbow. “Can I call you Al?”

My lips pressed into a thin line. I’m going to regret this, I thought. “I’d rather you—”

“Listen, Al, because this is important.” Catrin pressed her forefinger and thumb together and held them to her lips, which widened into an exaggerated smile. That grin revealed long, needle-sharp canines.

“I’m a dhampir, boyo. I drink blood, and more than half the time I like it. You really think all this is going to scare me off?” She waved at the bodies. When she saw my expression she laughed. “Don’t look so glum. I’m sure you were trying for the whole noble sacrifice thing, but save it. You’re stuck with me, least until this mess is done with.”

I turned my back to her, mainly so she couldn’t see the smile threatening the corners of my lips. How long had it been since I’d smiled at anything, without it being bitter or mocking?

“So…” Catrin coughed and glided to my side. “You looked like a devil coming out of that church, big man. What did you see in there?”

Any thought of smiling was forgotten then. “They killed the villagers,” I said. “All of them, I think.”

Catrin’s face bled what little color it had. “No…”

She looked to the chapel, and hate twisted her face. “That bastard,” she spat. “He said he was doing this for them.”

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She blinked several times, but a tear still fell.

I recalled, on my first night in the village, she’d been with a local. “You were close with one of them?” I asked softly.

Catrin wiped at her eye with the back of a hand. “Not really. I haven’t been here longer than a few months. Not much time to get close, you know? I spent most of my time those first weeks with Micah.”

“I remember there was a man,” I said. “That night we first met.”

“Oh.” Catrin let out a shaky laugh. “Just a bit of blood and warmth. I can’t even remember his name.” Her gaze went distant. “That’s awful, isn’t it?”

I shook my head. “It does you credit to weep for those you didn’t know well.” The admission she’d been feeding off the man unsettled me, but I let it go. This wasn’t the time.

“I can’t believe he would do this,” Catrin said as she stared at the silent church. “I knew he was ambitious, but not insane.”

“I don’t think this was Orson,” I said. When Catrin startled, I indicated the church. “There’s still a survivor. Micah’s disciple, Brother Edgar. He told me the baron wasn’t here last night. It was his guests instead. Lillian, the hobgoblin count, and those two in the robes.”

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I studied the bodies. “I think these Mistwalkers were left behind for Olliard and Lisette, if they tried returning to the church. Maybe for us, even. Loose ends.”

Catrin got what I implied quickly. “You think they betrayed him? Did a nastier version of the same ritual he intended, and stole his pet demon?”

“It’s possible.” I fixed my eyes on the distant fortress.” I’ll need to get to the castle to be sure. I still have a task to complete. You—”

“If you tell me to stay behind, I’m going to bite you.” Catrin glowered at me and bared her sharp teeth. “I’m going. That aristo prick is going to get Shivers right in his gut.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Shivers?”

The dhampir woman patted her elven blade and flashed a wicked smile. “Your cutter has a fancy name, so mine gets one too. Shivers. Cuz the banesilver makes the dead shiver, ya’ know?”

I snorted. “Let’s go, then. I’m sure they’re already shivering.”

“Hey! I saved your ass back there, big man, so don’t go making fun.”

Before I could reply, I heard the doors of the church opening. I turned to see Brother Edgar standing there, eyes wide as he surveyed the carnage.

“You…” the young monk’s voice trembled as he pointed a finger at me. “Just like last time, you…”

I sighed, having had a stomach full of piety. However, rather than proclaiming some devout supplication, the monk’s features twisted with rage.

“Where were you?” He spat. “Where were you when we needed you? When they were butchering them?”

He began to descend the steps, flinging one wide sleeve toward the dead ghouls. “What does all this do now? What’s the point? You should have just let those beasts kill me the night you arrived if it was all going to come to this.”

I didn’t know what to tell the young man. I had no words that could assuage his grief. Had I been even half the man I’d wanted to be — a true paladin, a proper knight — I’d have told him something to calm his fears, give purpose to his anger. I would have sworn some noble oath and breathed a bit of light back into that darkness.

But I didn’t have the words, and he was right. I hadn’t done anything for them. I’d spent the night trying to be clever, dining in an elven hall, making plots and plans to defeat my enemy.

Instead, hardening my heart against the monk’s despair, I turned to face him fully. “Where are the other two? Olliard and Lisette?”

Edgar’s face darkened further. “He did nothing for us either,” he hissed.

“Where are they, Edgar?”

Hugging himself beneath the cold rain, a blank, dull nothingness filled the monk’s eyes. “I gave him some of the preoster’s maps of the castle. Micah had been at odds with the Baron for years, making preparations to stop him…” He barked out a hollow laugh. “I thought him a paranoid old fool chasing after imagined sins!”

“They’re trying to infiltrate the castle?” I asked, trying to keep the man on topic.

Edgar nodded miserably. “Castle Cael used to lie at the center of a large township. You can still see its ruins across the lake. They make the waters treacherous, but there are a few routes you can use to get through and enter the castle. The maps were of the old town, showing places where the sunken buildings might not stop a boat.”

“Not much use to us,” Catrin noted. “I already have a route in.”

Edgar’s eyes went to Catrin, and lit with fresh fury. “You!”

Catrin sighed. “Here we go.”

“Deceiving slattern! You’re one of his creatures!” Edgar pointed a trembling finger at the dhampir. “Seductress! Succubus! Micah was healthy and strong before you crawled into his bed!”

Catrin winced, turning her face away from the monk’s anger. I grabbed him by the wrist, hard enough he let out a hiss of pain. I kept my voice very low, speaking slow and calm to break through his mania.

“She isn’t a succubus,” I told him firmly. “The baron wanted the preoster dead. He tried to kill you as well, so he could use the chapel to raise his beast. He killed Micah.”

“He kept to his vows for decades before she arrived,” Edgar hissed. “She weakened him.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But she’s on our side now, and we can’t afford to refuse help. This isn’t done.”

I let him go. He stumbled back, almost tripping over his robes into the mud.

“What of the monster?” I asked. “Orson was keeping something in the lake. A chimera, I think, and a big one. Did you warn them of that?”

Edgar nodded. “Of course. But Olliard insisted he could deal with it. He is… very capable. I think he’s some sort of monster hunter.”

I’d guessed the same. Still, a few fancy tools and his apprentice’s clever magic wouldn’t save them from the lake monster. Much less Karog, if he remained in the castle.

“Was there an ogre with the ones did this?” I asked, nodding to the church.

Edgar shook his head.

Was Karog not one of the betrayers? I wondered.

“What’re you thinking, big man?” Catrin asked, folding her arms and glancing nervously at the church. Brother Edgar had slumped down on the stairs and buried his head in his hands. I think he was praying. Or weeping.

I closed my eyes, thinking. Orson Falconer might be already be dead, his castle full of enemies. If not, then I was still duty bound to deliver his sentence.

Even if he were dead…

Olliard and Lisette had saved my life. I still owed them, even if they had pissed me off.

“I’m going to the castle.” I turned to Catrin. “I probably won’t come back out alive, if there’s a manifest demon and an army of other horrors inside.”

Catrin nodded, grinning without humor. “Sounds like a party. After you?”