Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-1.38: The Baron’s Madness

We found more evidence of the falling out between the Baron and his “guests” deeper into that house of darkness.

It started out as a corpse here and there. A Mistwalker ripped to shreds as though by some beast, rancid ghoul blood splattered like paint strokes across the rich tapestries and fine masonry of the halls.

The evidence grew as Catrin led me into the bowels of the castle. The men Issachar had left had met steep resistance from Orson’s household, and here I finally got a look at the enigmatic servants who kept the place up.

They were all chimera, or perhaps homunculi. Twisted, warped things grown in glass and bubbling liquid, sickly and misshapen. They had been strong, ripping apart the mercenaries like dolls, beating them to pulp, or eating them.

But the invading monsters had proved superior, in both tactic and number. Though the Mistwalkers had taken casualties, most of the corpses we found were the Baron’s creatures.

We found a group of three soldiers plunging long spears into the tumorous mass of a hunchback big as three men. It wasn’t dying no matter how many times they stabbed it, but it clearly felt pain.

The ghouls were laughing at it.

By the time I’d finished with them, my bloodstained axe smoldered with molten light. The little victory felt hollow, after what Quinn had revealed.

Catrin knelt by the hunchback’s side, laying a hand on its twisted neck as it struggled to breathe. She gave me a pleading look, and I lifted my axe.

When I’d put the poor thing out of its misery, we took stock of the corridor ahead. More bodies. Most were twisted humanoids like the big brute, but some resembled the creatures we’d fought down in the flood tunnel. These lacked wings, looking more like big, leech-headed reptiles which crawled on all fours.

“Baron must have emptied out his kennels for this,” Catrin noted. “You think he’s still alive?”

“We’ll find out,” I said. I glanced down at the dead hunchback one more time and clenched my fist. “He has much to answer for. Creating sapient life with alchemy is forbidden.”

“Nobles have been doing it for centuries,” Catrin reminded me. “Not all of them Recusant.”

“…I know.” Even still, this seemed wrong. These things were clearly slaves.

We carried on, meeting light resistance. Catrin, for her part, didn’t slow me down so much as a beat. She was no fighter so far as I could tell, but her sharp senses and awareness of the massive castle’s layout were indispensable. She’d warn me when danger approached, faster even than my powers could, then melt into the shadows to reappear by the time I’d dispatched the threat. More than once I managed to avoid a nasty ambush that way.

It felt strange, having a comrade backing me up. I’d fought alone for so many years. It reminded me of the old days. I’d had allies back then, too. Donnelly. Lias.

Donnelly would have liked Catrin. Her skills were much like his, as was her sense of humor.

And this was no time to be thinking about a different life. I put my mind on the task at hand, as loathsome as it may have been,

“Are we close?” I said with a grunt, pulling my axe from the skull of a lamprey head. We stood in a nexus chamber connecting several parts of the castle. Three branching hallways, all splitting from a cylindrical space guarded by time-worn statues. The stone faces watched us in sullen hostility.

Orson watched us. Or, his haunted castle watched did. Like many old halls, the entire edifice was an extension of his will. We’d found evidence some of the defenders had been empty suits of armor apparently come to life, a favorite trick among the aristocracy.

“We’re getting close,” Catrin said. “These stairs here, they lead down to the dungeons. The Baron keeps his laboratory down there, along with most of the chimera kennels.”

Which might mean the fiercest resistance might remain below. I hefted my axe and went ahead. Catrin kept behind me, ready to sink into a shadow at a moment’s notice.

Catrin suddenly started sniffing. “Blood below. Not ghoul, or those other things. Smells… cleaner.”

She gestured to the wall, where a small smear of blood had touched the stones. My heart skipped a beat. Was it Olliard down there? Or Lisette?

We descended down the narrow, spiraling stair. The air grew colder, and damper.

When we reached the bottom, we did find a body sprawled there. It had fallen down nearly the entire flight of stairs, landing limbs akimbo.

Far too many limbs. I approached cautiously, taking in the strange sight.

It — she — had been some kind of changeling or homonculus. Her skin was a dark shade of gray-blue, and she was smoothly bald. Her body was small and skinny, almost childlike, with long, jointed appendages sprouting from behind the shoulders of more human arms. Each was tipped in barbed claws, and were longer than the whole length of her body. She had too many eyes, all glassy green spheres on a face only vaguely human in shape.

Yet, she looked familiar.

Catrin stepped up next to me. “Priska. I never saw her under that cloak.” She cursed suddenly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s his daughter. I saw her in some of the castle’s paintings. Bleeding Gates, what did he do to her?”

I knelt by the small body. I remembered how she’d seemed to glide while clad in her concealing green cloak. I could imagine those spider legs scuttling beneath, hidden from sight.

“Or maybe just made to resemble his daughter,” I suggested. Catrin didn’t argue, and I suspect she had the same thought — that it wasn’t any better.

She was dead, alien eyes unblinkingly fixed on one wall. It looked like she’d fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. Though, with those inhuman limbs, I somehow doubted that had been what truly killed her.

I closed the chimeric child’s more human set of main eyes. As I did, I found a small, neat hole punched through her forehead, just above the eyebrows. Silver blood oozed from the wound.

“Olliard did this.” I stood and fixed my attention on the corridor ahead.

We went further, finding fewer bodies and no resistance. Catrin tensed at my back, but she didn’t need to tell me she’d heard something this time. Noise echoed down the shaft. An angry shout, then furniture crashing.

I recognized the voice. It wasn’t the Baron’s.

We reached entry to a large chamber, sickly artificial light spilling from within. The door had been forced open. Looking inside, I saw furniture scattered about, complicated looking equipment ranging from huge glass tanks to frames of brass and copper. A tank had been broken, leaving glowing green liquid pooling over the floor. It hissed like acid.

Mahogany desks and brass candelabras were scattered across the space, many upturned. Parchment, books, and precious materials were strewn everywhere.

Across the length of the spacious room, near a broken chair that’d been near fine as a throne, stood two figures. One was Orson Falconer. He was still clad in his kingly robes, precious gems glinting like little stars along the netted shoulders. He leaned against the wall, a hand pressed to one shoulder. Blood dripped through his fingers, dampening the expensive material of his overcoat.

The other was Olliard of Kell. He had his strange foreign weapon trained on the Baron, a terrible expression hardening his wizened face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, but his hands were steady.

Alchemical light of green and too-pale blue lit the scene, casting it in an almost feverish sense of threat.

The doctor noted my arrival and bared his teeth. “Lisette!” He barked.

Movement in the corner of my vision, the hasty muttering of ritual words. The young cleric stood near one wall, out of sight from the door. Her fingers played with strings done cat’s cradle style, aura flickering like half visible flame around them.

I was ready for the trick this time. Furrowing my brow in concentration, I made an effort of will and lifted my axe. A nearly invisible sphere of pale amber light appeared around me. Lisette’s magic enwrapped the sphere and stopped inches from my actual body an instant before they would have ensnared me.

The strings, a paler gold than the more amber tinted aureflame, strained with a sound like crackling lightning. I grit my teeth at the effort.

Damn, but the kid was strong. “Cat.” My voice came out as a strained growl.

“Got it,” Catrin said. She stepped into a patch of shadow — there were plenty in the room to pick from — and melted into it as though sinking into water. She appeared a moment later beside the apprentice, and — shocking me as much as the girl,— rabbit punched her in the back of the head.

Lisette crumpled to the ground. As her concentration broke, the golden tethers flickered from existence. I lowered my axe, sighing in relief.

Olliard lifted his crossbow higher, aiming at the Baron’s skull. “Don’t move!”

The Baron wheezed out a laugh. “Oh, this is a rich irony!”

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The doctor glared at him, not understanding.

I hesitated. “Leave him, doctor.”

I had questions for Orson Falconer, and his death was my responsibility.

Suspicion and confusion warred in the vampire hunter’s features. He glanced at Catrin, and a look of revulsion formed on his face. “You’ve been enthralled. I know what she is. Snap out of it, man, or I’ll have to kill you.”

I exchanged a glance with Catrin. She shrugged, and knelt to place her dagger to Lisette’s neck. “This is a hostage situation, right?” She didn’t quite keep the questioning note from her voice. “Listen, young lady, just don’t try that trick again.”

Lisette groaned, dazed.

“Get away from her!” Olliard snapped.

“Calm down, doctor.” I took a step further into the room, clearing the doorway. I didn’t want anyone sneaking up behind me. “I just don’t want to get snared by your apprentice’s Art again. And I need him alive to answer some questions.”

I turned my attention from the hunter and pointed at Orson with my axe. “Where did the others take that thing?”

Orson just smiled and spread his hands out. More blood spread across his rich garments in a growing stain, but it seemed to bother him little. He looked at peace.

Olliard hadn’t given him that. There were dead Mistwalkers in the room, and some more of the Baron’s creatures along with evidence of brutal violence. A bloodied short sword lay near the hem of the nobleman’s robes.

I bared my teeth. “You smile, after what you’ve unleashed?”

“And what is it you think I have unleashed?” Orson asked tiredly. He’d lost a lot of blood. I didn’t have much time.

“The villagers…” I took another step forward. “Your own people. Your duty was to protect them. You were their liege lord, and you served them up like sacrificial cattle. You brought the other Recusants here, gave them the tools and the reason.”

I hissed my next words. “Would you have done it yourself? Sacrificed all of those innocents to complete your weapon?”

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“Yes,” Orson said, without hesitation or apology. “I would have done it.”

I almost lunged forward to kill him right there. But I needed to know where the rest had gone, what they intended. He was my only lead.

Olliard stared at me, then turned his attention back to the lord. “What did you do, Orson? What is he talking about?” His aged features twisted with rage. “Micah… that man practically raised you! Why did you kill him?”

“Because he was in my way,” Orson spat. “Because he served immortal tyrants who killed my homeland. Because, in our tired world, death has no meaning.”

A sickly smile spread across his face. “Ask him.” He nodded to me. “He knows of what I speak.”

All eyes in the room turned to me. Even Lisette’s, who had started to recover from Catrin’s blow.

“What is he talking about?” The doctor asked me. “Speak, man.”

I didn’t have time for this. If Orson died before I learned where his treacherous allies had gone and what they planned, this entire sad tragedy has been for nothing.

“You are one of them, are you not?” Orson’s eyes narrowed. “One of the Archon’s champions? I suspected it when we spoke. I saw your eyes, and the demon seemed to fear you. Wasn’t hard to do a bit of reading and put two and two together.”

His thoughtful tone hardened. “You know exactly why I do this. Your order made the same choice!”

I glared at him and took another step forward. More aureflame crackled along my axe. It singed my hand, but I just clenched my fingers tighter and ignored the pain.

“I did not betray King Tuvon,” I spat. “That was the captains. I had no part in their betrayal.”

A half truth is little better than a lie. The fact my power scorched me was proof enough I wasn’t guiltless.

Lisette’s eyes widened. She hadn’t tried to move with Catrin’s silver blade at her throat, but I could tell I’d surprised her.

Orson took that in, and looked disappointed. “I see. I had thought you were a kindred spirit, a disenfranchised knight seeking vengeance against the blessed ones who had so wronged you. But you are one of the loyal ones, aren’t you?”

He sighed. “Just my damned luck. Ah, well.”

He winced and began to slide down the wall, too weak to keep his feet.

I studied the nightmarish laboratory. One of the broken tanks had contained a shriveled, fetal thing with a beak and otherwise disturbingly human features.

Orson turned his head on a limp neck to regard the doctor. “I freed Micah of his slavery. He would have never listened to reason.”

Olliard just shook his head. “You are mad.”

“I am awake,” Orson insisted. His face had become ashen. “Awake in a land full of sleepers. We are prisoners, Olliard. Prisoners in a cage of dreams and stories. I have seen it. I have crossed the veil and found iron walls.”

Again his eyes moved to me. “That man is a paladin of the Alder. He knows. He is one of their wardens.”

This time, when Olliard followed the lord’s gaze, it lingered on me. “Explain,” he said, cold. “And tell that creature to step away from my disciple.”

“Fuck that,” Catrin shot back. “She’s a bloody sorceress.”

“Let her go,” I told Catrin, who startled. “But don’t let her weave again.”

Catrin complied reluctantly. Lisette started to rise, looking dazed.

“You won’t save yourself talking about theology,” I said to the dying noble. “Judgement has been passed, my lord. I am here to deliver it.”

“Judgement?” Orson’s face, ashy and weak, transformed with sudden rage. “They would judge me!? After all they have stolen from me?”

“You had more than many.” I felt little pity for him.

I felt a shiver run through me and closed my eyes. Half heard words whispered through my thoughts, my blood. Heretic, they murmured. Bring him to the light.

I shut them out. “I know the Onsolain aren’t perfect. Believe me, I know. But the Adversary is worse. You gave one of the Abgrûdai flesh. There is no worse sin you can commit.”

Lisette’s already pale face turned ghost white. Catrin winced, and Olliard blinked at me with owlish disbelief.

Orson Falconer just bowed his head, not a hint of shame on his face.

“A Demon of the Abyss.” I almost whispered the words. “One of the same monsters who rampaged through Seydis ten years ago.”

“At the command of mortal man,” Orson muttered. “Let us not forget that.”

I sneered. “You are no Reynard, Orson. Not even a shadow of him. Your guests taught you that. Had you been anyone, they wouldn’t have turned on you so easily.”

I stepped forward and lifted my axe, letting it burn with aureflame. “Where are the others, Orson?”

“You would panic at such a thing, wouldn’t you?” The Baron laughed dryly. “You Alder Knights were practically engineered to fight them. But you are too late this day, Headsman. Yes!” He laughed again at the surprise on my face. “My sources are quite knowledgeable, and I got missives from Vinhithe. The earl there is in my pocket. I know who you are, what your role is. You may deliver my sentence, but I am only a small part in all this.”

His smile was nearly as wide as those macabre grins of the ghouls. “I… do not know where my benefactors have gone. How they intend to use the spirit, I cannot say. I only know they will use it to burn this rotten world, and I am satisfied.”

There was a metallic pop, a thudding impact and the crack of cranial bone. The Baron’s head jerked back, struck the wall, then he slumped limp to the ground.

Olliard lowered his crossbow and let out a weary breath. “Madness,” he said to himself. “Madness. All of this, for…”

He shook his head, looking more tired than satisfied.

I glared at him. “His life was mine, Olliard.”

The doctor’s weary expression didn’t fade as he loaded his crossbow with methodical indifference, then lifted it to aim halfway between me and Catrin, ready to swing to bear on either of us in a moment.

“Don’t be a fool,” I warned him. “I am not your enemy.”

“Come over here, Lisette.” The doctor didn’t take his eyes off me.

Catrin threw me a questioning look. I lifted a hand, telling her to wait. Lisette shuffled over to the doctor and turned to face us. I noted that Catrin had confiscated her little finger strings, and felt a surge of gratitude for the changeling’s quick thinking.

“Who are you?” Olliard demanded. “What do you have to do with any of this?”

“That’s a long story,” I said.

Olliard’s lips tightened. “Summarize.”

“I serve the Lords of Heavensreach,” I said.

Lisette’s eyes widened. The doctor only sighed, clearly believing I was being obstinate.

“It’s true,” I said. “I am an agent of the Choir Concilium. The Onsolain sent me to serve a sentence of execution on Orson Falconer.”

I pointed at the dead nobleman with my axe. “You ended up delivering that, but it was my purpose since the night arrived in Caelfall.”

“You sound as mad as him,” Olliard spat. “You serve the Choir of God? They are stories. He speaks of afterlives and demons, and you tell me you were sent by angels… this is all madness.”

Lisette glanced uncertainly at her mentor. “Master…” she began.

“Not now,” he snapped. The young cleric flinched.

“Then, that commotion in Vinhithe…” Olliard’s expression went distant with thought. “That was you, wasn’t it? He called you Headsman. I’ve heard that name.”

I wasn’t willing to give all my secrets to this man. “You came here to hunt monsters. I assure you, we’re on the same side.”

Catrin shifted at my side. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the old physik and his alchecraft crossbow, but I sensed a subtle tension from the dhampir.

“And yet you keep their company,” the doctor said, eyeing the changeling. “How do I know it has not enthralled you?”

“She was Micah’s friend, same as you.”

“Is that what it told you?” Olliard asked, amused. “You were his friend, were you? Catrin of Ergoth?”

Catrin drew in a sharp breath. I risked a glance at her. Her whole body seemed wire taut with tension.

Ergoth… The name sounded familiar. But where had I—

I hadn’t ever heard it, I realized. Not with my own ears. The strange, ghostly nostalgia of my Alder given magic knew the name, not I.

It had been a small kingdom, long ago. It had fallen. Not to war, but to…

The ghost memory faded.

“He knew what I was,” Catrin said with a quiet sadness. “He treated me well all the same.”

“He was addicted to you, leech.” Olliard’s expression went almost imperious with disdain. “I warned him your nature ruled you, but he always turned a blind eye. I should have killed you when you were still young and human enough for it to stick.”

His eyes narrowed. “Was it you who—”

Catrin didn’t reply, only hugged herself and averted her red eyes. She still had some of my blood on her face, and her noble dress had been tattered and stained with muck over the last two days. It made her look like some vampire lord’s maidenly victim, though I knew that was far from the truth.

“Orson already admitted to being responsible for the preoster’s death,” I cut in.

“But all those years you fed on him aged him past his time,” the vampire hunter accused. “When I last saw him, he was weak. Ill. He should have been strong enough to stand up to the likes of Orson Falconer.”

His eyes went to the corpse by the wall. Orson’s violet eyes remained open and glassy in death. Olliard sniffed, no hint of regret on his face. The kindly old man I’d met beyond the woods of Caelfall seemed gone. I didn’t recognize this bitter, accusatory hunter for that altruistic healer.

But I did recognize him.

“I’ve heard enough,” I said. All eyes turned to me, and I waited a beat before continuing. “My work is done here. Are you going to push this, Olliard?”

The doctor glanced between me and Catrin. “She is a dangerous predator ruled by her hunger. I have seen it a thousand times. They can become true vampires, you know, these half-dead. The older she gets, the worse her hunger. If you are truly a warrior of the divine, you will heed me.”

“If you try to slay her,” I said, still surprising myself with how calm I sounded, “I will fight you. I owe her a debt, whatever she may become.”

All of us in that room were a sort of monster already. Except Lisette, perhaps.

Olliard spoke an ugly oath. “On your head be it, then.”

I nodded and glanced at Catrin, then jerked my head to the door. She looked shaken, but went ahead of me. I put my back between her and the hunters.

“Alken.”

I turned toward the doctor. The old man had lowered his alchebow, and his posture had slumped with exhaustion. Even still, a steely resolve flickered to life in his eyes.

“Should we meet again, I will consider you an enemy. I have heard of you… The Headsman of Seydis.” He lifted his chin. “You are a murderer. A butcher.”

“And you aren’t?” I asked, gesturing again to the dead lord.

“I hunt monsters,” the doctor said. “I protect innocents. You are just a phantom left from the war.”

What a sad mirror we made. I wonder if he understood the irony.

I just nodded. “Until next time, then. If there is a next time.”

I turned and left.