Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 23Arc 7: : Fracture

Twelve years.

For twelve years I’d wandered, fought, bled, regretted. For twelve years I’d sought some kind of dubious repentance, a way to make up for my failures. And there in front of me, contorted like victims of Inquisition broken on the wheel, stretched and twisted, crawled the very faces of my failure. They reached for me with fingers like gnarled tree roots, mouths agape and eyes brimming with poisonous tears.

Twelve years. Had they been suffering all that time, waiting day by day for me to return and fight for them?

I could have. I could have spurned the Houses, those squabbling wolves, and forged back into Seydis to slay all the monsters who violated it and save the elves, or died trying. The realization came like a punch to the gut, like a lethal wound that bled painlessly and fast.

I was shocked out of my reverie when a pike darted forward and sunk into the Woed she-elf’s neck. She gurgled and shivered, then slumped down like a dead spider, finally succumbing to her wounds. Around me, the battle continued.

“Are you alright!?” The militiaman who’d killed the Abyss-tainted faerie shouted in my ear.

“Fine,” I rasped. I blinked out of my shock and inspected the street. Reinforcements had arrived, probably Cyril’s men from the garrison finally caught up to me. We were pushing the irks back, though the transformed elves were nightmares, fast as insects and moving with a skittering energy. They changed by the second, limbs elongating so they could twist around their victims and strangle them. Most had discarded their artful weaponry and fought like animals, shrieking in high, piercing voices.

This wasn’t Maerlys, but they were Seydii. The ones we’d failed, the ones we’d left behind when the Golden Country was consumed by fire and madness.

One of the Woed spasmed suddenly, then its chest burst open to reveal ribs that’d become like snapping teeth in a gory maw. One by one the rest were revealing their true forms, and they were killing the changelings — their own half-mortal children and descendants — as readily as the humans.

An orgy of violence. The storm above the town roiled, as though growling in satisfaction at this butchery.

Mounted knights from the castle tore down the street, bypassing my group with dextrous precision. Each rider was mounted on a chimera of local stock — big, scaled beasts with tube-shaped mouths like horse fish. They’d been grown with lungs that could emit flammable gas, and they sent a barrage of fiery plumes ahead of them as they crashed into the disorganized attackers. Those irks and Woed who weren’t burned were crushed or pinned on the lances of the knights.

“Let not a one escape Tol alive!” A voice shivering with auratic volume cried out. Ser Cyril was among the riders. He saw me, covered in blood and surrounded by corpses, and gave a nod. I couldn’t muster the energy to return the acknowledgement.

“The eastern gate has been breached,” Cyril told me. He was surrounded by his Art, the fluttering white darts like little faeries circling his head in a halo. “We are heading that way.”

This would be easier with Morgause, I thought. I should have tried retrieving her when I’d revealed myself to the garrison.

A deep, guttural snort ripped down the street. We all turned to see a tall figure approach from the east. It was a rider, clad in black armor turned a dull red by bloodstains old and new. He wore an antlered helm, a cape long as a royal train, and clutched a flanged mace dripping with gore. His steed was a dire wolf, tusked and taller than a man, its eyes burning with an amber-green light. Not a chimera, but some fey thing from the deep wilds.

Cyril’s eyes widened in recognition. “Ser Ildeban. What is he doing here?”

I stared at the armored figure as he approached calmly through the faeries and knights, fearless of the enemies around him. He rattled as he walked, but not just with the weight of chainmail. He wore dozens of medals on his person, which clicked and shifted together with every movement. Every one was a Knight’s Mark, claimed as a trophy. There were other riders further back, all similarly clad in dark armor, though I knew they weren’t human — not anymore, anyway. They were gaunt, or fat, but none had natural proportions. These were changelings too, but of a haughtier breed than the irks.

“Little Stork!” The Hobgoblin of Yrrk threw his head back and laughed, then reached up and lifted his visor. He had a green face, warted and swollen, with milky eyes wide with a feral mirth. A frilly collar peeked out of his gorget, swallowing his meaty neck in a flowery vice. ṞάꞐȮꞖĘṡ

I’d met him once, at Orson’s council in Caelfall. He was a hunter of knights, a centuries old boogeyman known to challenge famous warriors in brutal tests. The ones behind him would be his squires. He’d hunted well during the Fall, but hadn’t bent the knee to the Recusants… not until later, anyway. I knew he’d been part of Hasur Vyke’s plot, but he hadn’t appeared in Garihelm’s tourney.

Ser Ildeban’s eyes scanned the defenders merrily, as though he were choosing his next morsel at a feast. His bright eyes found me, and he frowned. “Don’t I know you?”

“You and I made sport of Issachar at Orson’s get together,” I told him. “But I didn’t properly introduce myself at the time. Alken of House Hewer at your service, my lord.” I dipped my head. “Some have taken to calling me the Headsman of Seydis.”

The changeling nobleman’s eyes widened, and he grinned to flash sharp canines. “Ah! Yes, yes, I’ve heard of you! I can’t believe you sat across the very table I supped at and I did not kill you!”

He swept his mace at me, splashing blood and bits of someone’s skull across the cobblestones. “For centuries I was the great hunter of knights and lords, the name that made the Houses of the Pretender God quake in fear. Then you came along.” His voice lowered into a snarl. “For that, and for swaying Calerus from us, you will die first.”

“Get your men to the wall,” I told Cyril without taking my eyes off of Ildeban. “I’ll handle this.”

Cyril lowered his visor, and his voice came out with a metallic ring through the beaked mask. “Do not bother toying with this one. He has much to answer for.”

“Don’t worry,” I said as I stepped forward. “I have a score of my own to settle with him.”

He’d been there at Caelfall. He’d been part of the evil that’d been done there, and I hadn’t forgotten a single face or a single name who’d been part of that. Issachar had answered for it, and Hyperia, and Calerus in the loss of his sister and in his obeisance to the Emperor.

They would all answer for it, one way or another.

“Where’s Lillian?” I asked as I approached him at a steady clip, my sabatons ringing against the stone. “Besides you, she’s the only one I haven’t taken care of.”

The dire wolf snarled and started to pad towards me. Ildeban flourished his mace in a mocking twirl. It hummed as it parted the air. “No need to fret over her. You won’t have to concern yourself with anything after tonight.”

I shrugged. “Her days are numbered. Maybe I’ll send your ghost to tell her that.”

Ildeban’s lips curled back from his teeth in a rictus grin. “After I take your head, I think I’ll keep it. I’ll hunt that squire of yours, the Carreon whelp. I’ll show her your skull and see if she weeps for you.” His voice dropped into a conspiratorial murmur. “Something tells me she won’t. I’ve met Carreons before. Heartless devils, every one of them.”

I didn’t reply. I was too busy focusing. As Ildeban lowered his crow-faced visor and spurred his mount into a run, I reached into the folds of my cloak and sunk my hand into the darkness there, feeling the ensuing wash of cold.

I didn’t think Ildeban really led this attack — he was mercenary, a hunter and a rabid dog. A war had broken out around me, and I had things to do and no time to waste on some distracting duel. Once, I might have jumped at the chance to test myself against a legend, but I wasn’t twenty and starving for glory anymore. Besides, I could see the power gathering around his off hand. No doubt the same Art that’d broken the eastern gate.

I pulled out my crossbow, raised it, and pulled the trigger. The bolt slammed into Ildeban, punching through his gorget and embedding itself into his neck. He reeled back, letting out a cry that came out gargled and muted through his perforated visor.

His wolf lunged at me, snapping as green fire spilled out of its maw. It was armored, and heavy enough to break me with its sheer weight, and I wasn’t about to try to wrestle with it. Instead I jumped, using aura to enhanced the leap, and in a ripple of red cloth and aureflame I swung.

At the last moment, Ildeban’s glowing left hand lifted and a spiked shield formed in it. It caught my axe, cracked like glass, but held. An aureshield. We fell together, slamming into the street and rolling in a mad tumble. When I found my feet, I turned to see Ildeban a short distance away and also rising to his full and impressive height.

He ripped the bolt out of his neck, lifted the smoking dart, then tossed it away disdainfully. “Please. Blessed gold? Do you think I’m abgrüdai?”

I didn’t know what he was, but the fact he’d just shrugged off an aura-infused bolt directly through his neck annoyed me. And that Art he’d used… that wasn’t whatever he’d done to break the gate. He had multiple techniques.

And I presently had none.

Ildeban started to pace, his armor clacking with every step. “Dishonorable lout! I challenged you to a duel, and you shoot me!?”

I snorted as I returned my crossbow to the Dead Roads. “Dishonorable? You were mounted, and I’m on foot. What’s fair about that?”

“A true knight is one with his steed!” Ildeban laughed.

“Hewer, look out!”

Cyril’s warning saved my life. The dire wolf had turned and charged me. I spun just in time to avoid getting my neck caught in its teeth. It snapped inches from my face, then shoulder checked me hard enough to send me to the ground.

I coughed as I rolled upright, the breath knocked out of me. If I hadn’t been wearing armor, that would have broken bones. I struggled to my feet, trying to shake off the disorientation.

I lifted my head just in time to see a crackling green spear of energy in Ildeban’s left hand. He lifted it high, and with a thunderous shout he hurled it.

My eyes widening, I reacted on pure reflex. Pouring aura into my axe, I swung in an attempt to bat the phantasm out of the air. Hithlenic Bronze wasn’t a natural metal, and being part phantasm itself I could use it to counter sorcerous attacks. But if I was off my timing by even a heartbeat—

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I wasn’t, and the edge of the axe — an amalgam of dwarf giant and elven craft — connected with the crackling bolt midair. There was a flash, a musical sound of impossible volume, a thunderous CRACK! and a sudden numbness in my right arm.

When the light in my vision cleared and the ringing in my ears faded, I realized I’d been hurled more than ten feet and lay on my back. Everything hurt. Groaning, I rolled onto my stomach and got a knee under me. I used the axe to prop myself up, and that’s when I realized that Faen Orgis, my companion since the day I’d sworn my vow to the Choir and become Headsman, had broken.

Spiderwebbing cracks glowing with a venomous green light marred the black blade. The edge crumbled away, turned brittle as thin rock, and smoke trailed off the weapon. The numbness in my arm was quickly becoming a throbbing agony, and I realized the gauntlet of my armor had been deformed. There was damage to the vambrace too, and one of the small hinges for articulation near the elbow had blown clean off. When I lifted my arm, the whole thing let out a squeal of protest and resisted the motion.

I blinked dumbly at the damage, taking a moment to let the reality sink in. Even as I watched, more fragments of the axe fractured and fell to the ground, each glowing like hot iron.

The Doomsman’s Arm was designed to withstand the rigors of auratic combat. A normal blade would melt or shatter if I tried to use it as a focus for one of my more powerful Arts. Even when striking back against a hostile magic, most of the damage should have been done to me, not the weapon.

I lifted my head to stare at Ser Ildeban. He’d raised his visor to study his work, looking annoyed that I still lived.

Strong. He was strong. I’d honed my skills since, and knew in that moment that if I’d had to fight him at Caelfall, he would have killed me.

Through my ringing ears, I heard Cyril give the order to charge. He must have realized the same thing I did; If Ildeban used that technique again, he could kill everyone on the street.

The knights of Osheim charged along with the armed pilgrims. Ildeban’s squires howled and hooted like beasts, moving forward eagerly to spill blood. The two sides clashed in a mad rush of violence, and once again the sounds of battle echoed across the streets of Tol.

Ildeban stepped toward me, the eyes behind his helmet’s slit glowing green, but one of Cyril’s riders tore past us and nearly trampled him. He snarled, and crackling power gathered in his left hand. It began to shape itself into a spear again.

I wouldn’t let him. Keeping the remnants of my axe in hand, mostly just the oak handle and some fragments of the blade now, I pulled my rondel out and charged him. Faen Orgis’s handle seemed to still be alive, and I grew it to the length of a short spear and stabbed at Ildeban’s eyes. He dodged, batting at me with his mace and forcing me to retreat, but I’d fouled his technique.

“I hear you’ve seen Brenner Hunting fight!” He told me as we circled. “Do you know his family’s Art came from me? I founded the clan centuries ago…”

“Tell your tragic story to a cleric,” I snapped. “I’m not interested in confession.”

“What a poor paladin you are.” He glanced toward his men and growled angrily. Outnumbered, they were being pushed back by the garrison. Soon enough, Ser Ildeban would be cut off and surrounded.

“Surrender,” I told him, “and we can talk terms.” My right arm throbbed with pain. I couldn’t move it well.

He scoffed, then grabbed his dire wolf’s saddle as it drew up next to him and mounted. The beast snapped at me, forcing me back before I could stop them. It had no reins, just a set of twisted antlers for handholds at the front of the seat like an overwrought saddle horn. Ildeban grabbed the apparatus and rested his mace on one shoulder, grinning down at me.

“I suppose we must cut this short,” he said. “I will enjoy hunting you during this new war, Headsman!”

He turned and rode off down the street, barking for his men to follow. Cyril’s riders gave chase, driving them toward the gate.

I didn’t give chase. Unmounted, I had no hope of catching up with the knights. The Glorysworn with the tusked helm approached me along with some of the surviving pilgrims.

“That was a sight,” he said. “Can’t believe you’re still alive after he hit you with that green light. Are you wounded?”

He nodded to my arm, the one holding my broken weapon. I tested it and winced. At least I could still move it. Hopefully it was just the shock of impact and not a fracture. “It’s nothing. You should try to catch up with Cyril. He’ll be driving the enemy out of the city.”

“We’ll join you, Ser. Not like we can keep up with the cavalry anyway.” The man hefted his maul up onto a shoulder. “Luca of Bragg, if it please you.”

I nodded. “I’ll be hunting those.” I pointed with the remnants of my axe at one of the lumbering ogres still roaming the town. “Cyril is retaking the gate, so it seems the best way to help. Are you all up for that?”

There were nervous looks in the group, but a lanky boy of nineteen just nodded and checked the string on his longbow. He’d be an archer from some rural village, and judging by his over-muscled left arm he’d been preparing for it his whole life.

“My knight’s dead,” the lad told me. “I was with a lance from the ‘Moor. I’ll kill any monster you put me in range of, milord.”

That elicited a smile from me. “Good.” Looking at the group I added, “I could use a weapon.”

Of course, they handed me a sword. It was freshly forged too, one of the same blades I’d heard being hammered out during my wanderings through the town. The hilt bore the Sacred Mark, this one with a distinctive curl to its outer wings. An Aureate blade. I could feel a very faint power humming off of it, the results of a smith who’d poured their faith, their soul, into its make.

It had a good balance and some heft. It would serve. I sunk my broken axe into the shadows, which drew some unsettled looks from the group, then led the rag-tag band eastward. I focused my senses and tried to trace the thread of wrongness I sensed. Ildeban had been a distraction, I felt certain of that. Yet, the storm above made it difficult to focus. The air crackled with power, filling the town with distracting arcane noise.

I stared up at the brooding clouds above Tol. Was it the storm? Is that what made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, my weapon hand itch?

It wasn’t what made the scars Shyora had given me bleed. They still ached dully. I paused to massage them as my warband spoke amongst themselves.

“It’s the Recusants,” someone was saying. “They pretended to surrender to Forger, but now they’ve shown their true colors. Those knights before made pacts with devils, that’s why they look like that.”

“The Recusants didn’t fight with elves,” someone else argued. “It’s the Briar. They’ve been waiting for the chance, and now their old enemies are gone they’re back to take their revenge.”

“It’s the Ghoul King! Calerus deceived the Emperor, and now he’s opened Talsyn’s gates.”

“They’re Seydii.” I realized I’d been the one to speak, though I hadn’t made a conscious decision to do so. I ran my eyes over the group. “These are elves that were left behind in Seydis during the Fall. You know what happened there?” freewebnoveℓ.com

Ser Luca nodded, his expression dark. “The traitor wizard. He opened a gate to Hell and unleashed demons on the land.”

“These elves are sick,” I told them. “They’ve been infected with a disease brought by the evil Reynard unleashed. It doesn’t mean they’re all evil now. Pity them, but don’t show them any mercy. There’s no cure for becoming Woed, just like there’s no cure for Wyrmblight or lycanthropy. It’s the same kind of thing, so put any ideas that all the elves are our enemies now out of your heads.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten through to them, but felt it needed to be said. All the talk about the elves turning bad and becoming humanity’s enemy had bothered me more than I’d realized. Seydis had been beautiful, and I firmly believed the world would be worse without elves, even if they could be fickle and frightening.

Turning my attention forward, I realized that we’d entered the main square beneath Lyda’s Cathedral. The towering church rose high over the surrounding town, untouched by the rampaging Storm Ogres and other monsters who’d assaulted within the last hour. I saw little signs of battle here, almost like the attackers had avoided it. The disfigured seraph statues to either side of the door looked out with waxy, sightless eyes on the night, dispassionate to anything not happening within their own walls.

I wondered if Grandmother Urddha remained nearby, watching all of this transpire. Was Chamael still here? Would they stand by and do nothing? I knew the Onsolain were not allowed to interfere directly in mortal affairs by divine law, but this conflict didn’t just involve mortals. There should have been devas, ishim, seraphs, cherubim, and other celestial messengers in the sky fighting the storm. This incursion of western spirits never should have gotten this far in the first place.

One of the group shivered at the sight of the cathedral. “Creepy place. I feel like worms are crawling through my heart just looking at it.”

“It should have been torn down,” someone else muttered.

I ignored them. The nearest Storm Ogre was straying dangerously close to the eastern gate. I started to move in that direction, but a hand grasped my elbow and stopped me.

“That’s enough.” Vicar had appeared from nowhere, and his voice was low with anger. “You’re a mess, and we have work to do.”

I pulled my arm away. “Work? What, playing with some mirror to find the trail of a man who’s probably on the other side of the world by now?” I pointed at the distant signs of battle. “This is important, Kross. This matters.”

Vicar studied me a moment, his eyes narrowing. Some of the pilgrims were muttering. They hadn’t seen where the newcomer had appeared from.

“Our quest is not optional.” Vicar spoke slowly, pausing so a rumble of thunder could pass. “You are distraught. I understand why, I think. But there is little good you can do here, Alken. You can slay a thousand monsters and plant a hundred banners, it will not stop what is coming. This war was brewing long before you arrived here. It has been holding its breath for years. It came suddenly and at a terrible time, but it does not change what we must do!”

I glanced at the pilgrims, at the distant glow of burning buildings, at the giants wreaking havoc across the settlement. “I can’t just abandon them.”

“You think this is the only sacked town? The only battle to be fought!?” Vicar almost spat with rage. “Alken, you have been fighting war the entire time you’ve been Headsman. Every single skirmish, every raid, every execution… do you think it was all for nothing? Have you simply been waiting for this?”

I said nothing. I didn’t want to listen, or to talk. I just wanted to fight. They could break every blade I carried, crack my bones, I had plenty of fight in me. It was easier than what waited back at that castle. Easier than deciding what to do about Lias, about Delphine. Why should I listen to this man? No, this thing? He was a devil and he wanted to lead me astray.

“You’re already wounded.” Vicar spoke with a cold directness, no hint of concern or sympathy in his voice. “And I watched when your axe was broken. That is a weapon of Doom, not of war, and you wasted it in a vain duel against a vain creature. It is time to cut your losses and focus!”

“Ser?” Luca had stepped forward. He glanced at Vicar, frowning as though sensing something off about the crowfriar.

“It’s fine,” I told him. I took a deep breath, working to calm myself from successive battles and the ugly feeling roiling in my chest, more uncomfortable than any battle wound. “It’s fine.”

He was right. Damn him, but he was right. But… “What can we do, anyway? Until you’ve got something from the mirror…”

“I think I’ve discovered something,” Vicar told me. “Or, Delphine did. But we need you back at the castle. Will you come?”

He was right, but I couldn’t just desert in the middle of a siege after I’d taken command of others. I glanced at the armed pilgrims, who wore looks mingling impatience and confusion. The storm rumbled. It sounded less violent now. Perhaps it was passing.

Just as I opened my mouth to give Vicar an answer, something made me pause. I didn’t know why at first, until I realized that everything had gone very quiet.

Into that silence came the click of settling metal, the rustling of fabric. A long inhale of satisfied breath disturbed the still air.

I realized the wind had gone dead. The storm no longer rumbled high above.

Then, into that silence, a voice spoke.

“So this is where Lyda met her fate. It does exude a particular aroma of old rot, does it not?”

I couldn’t move. The realization came belatedly, when I thought to turn and my body wouldn’t obey. My eyes flicked, the only part of me I could muster the will to shift. The band of fighters who’d followed me all looked similarly frozen. Their eyes were wide, their faces stiff, their chests unmoving as though they’d forgotten how to breathe.

Fear. The look on their faces was fear. I knew, because I felt it too. A primal, visceral fear, like a the weight of a great deluge of water had suddenly crashed down on us and stolen our ability to think, to act.

Vicar whispered something that I didn’t quite catch. It sounded like “No. But he can’t…”

I glanced the other direction, and saw the outer folds of a long cape. It was red and embroidered with golden stitchwork. Whoever wore it was too tall for me to see properly without tilting my head up, which I tried to do and managed only with a focused effort. My eyes went up, and up, running along the visage of a figure standing more than ten feet tall.

He wore gilded armor covered in filigree. It looked like the ceremonial armor of a king, but as my eyes took in the details I realized the images engraved into his steel showed images of angels with torn wings, of towers falling, of a sun bleeding into a river. There were words there, along the upper curve of the breastplate in an old Edaean script, the same one used by the clergy in many of their rites. It read Rejoice! For Heaven Is Still Burning.

Above those words, a mane of dark gray hair spilled around the figure’s neck. Within that mane, an animal’s face glanced down at me with small, bright eyes set too far apart. It grinned, revealing yellow fangs, and spoke again in a soft, cultured voice underpinned by a deep growl.

“Can you smell it?” The lion asked me. “The rot?”

The 𝘮ost uptodat𝑒 novels are pub𝙡ished on fre(e)webno(v)el.𝒸𝑜𝘮