Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 17Arc 8: : Lamp

We moved deeper into the woods as the angry howls of the undead faded into the distance behind us. I listened, on guard and waiting for Evangeline to send her pack into the trees to chase me, but she must have decided to exercise some caution.

“They are up ahead,” Vicar told me after we’d gone some distance further.

“Anyone hurt?” I asked.

“I smell no blood, but there is an unfamiliar scent. Perhaps our mysterious ally. Be cautious.”

He didn’t need to tell me that. I kept my axe in hand and resting on my shoulder. The deepening night was no impediment to me, the scadumare, or the crowfriar. We passed into a small clearing where the rising moon cast some natural light over the grass.

Morgause’s tufted ears flicked up, warning me of danger even before my own senses. Something scuttled through the trees, inhumanly dextrous. It went from branch to branch, the buds of fresh leaves shivering as its mass passed over them.

A distraction. Something else moved through the roots behind us, crawling low. I tensed.

“Leave him, Carus!”

The two forms moving through the trees came to a sudden stop. In that brief moment of stillness, I registered painted shapes of many-jointed limbs and sharp protrusions. More marions, siblings to the one I’d destroyed inside the monastery. Before I took in all the detail of their make, they shivered back into the darkness and out of my sight.

I blew out a slow breath to release my nerves and spurred Morgause forward into the clearing. A figure on the opposite side also moved forward, emerging into the moonlight so I got a good look at them. He wore a long leather coat and a wide-brimmed hat to shadow his features. Mirroring my posture, he rested a weapon on his shoulder, his instrument an elaborately designed crossbow.

“It has been some time,” the man greeted me. “Hello, Alken.”

Though the night and his concealing garments obscured details, I knew who he was by his voice, by the unique weapon he carried, and by the glint of round spectacles just barely visible below the brim of his hat. I hadn’t seen him in two years, but his name came readily to my lips.

“Olliard.”

He led me further into the forest. We did not speak. I walked on foot, leading my chimera through the tangled underbrush, my attention on the other man’s back. I had questions, but kept them to myself. I was more interested in seeing if my companions were alright for the time being.

Vicar was not so patient. “You know this man?”

“I do,” I muttered back, speaking quietly enough our guide couldn’t hear us. So far as I knew, he possessed no supernatural hearing.

“You are allies?” The crowfriar asked. There seemed to be a slight edge to his voice.

“Not exactly,” I replied. “We ran into one another a couple years ago, before I met Emma even. He was Lisette’s mentor before she came into the Empress’s service. He’s a doctor, among other things.”

Vicar fell silent, and we went the rest of the way without conversation. Something watched us from the trees. Those puppets, I thought, and whoever controlled them.

The light of a small campfire broke the gloom of the forest ahead, its warm glow accompanied by snatches of conversation. Olliard and I moved into the campsite, which proved to be more a small hollow in the forest than a proper clearing, well hidden within the thicket of trees. My lance waited there, all seated on roots or patches of dry ground around the fire, warming their hands and speaking in furtive voices. They fell into a hush as they saw us.

“Told you!” Penric chortled as his false eyes fixed on me. “Nothing can kill this bastard! Erm, forgive me, Ser.”

Lisette spoke a brief prayer at the sight of me, thanking the God-Queen, while Hendry let out a sigh of relief. Emma watched me with neutral indifference.

“You’re alright!” Hendry exclaimed. “We were just debating going back for you.”

Indeed, they all looked like they were just catching their breaths, their faces still shiny with sweat. Hendry and Emma’s chimera stood together off to the side, both breathing hard from exertion.

Seeing them all alive and well filled me with a surge of relief. But the feeling came tempered by the knowledge of who’d helped bring us here.

Olliard moved to the other side of the fire. My lance watched him warily, and from their lack of surprise I guessed they’d already met, something also apparent by the pre-prepared camp. He set his alchebow against the side of a tree, took his hat off and hung it from the weapon, then turned to face us.

He was a small man, unthreatening, built thin with curly gray hair and bushy eyebrows. Eyes the color of a misty lake watched us from behind a pair of wire-framed glasses, intelligent and guarded. He looked older than I remembered him, more stooped. Closer to sixty than fifty.

He did not seem a dangerous man. Yet, I knew him to be one.

The doctor clapped his hands together and ran a calculating look over the group. He spoke in a soft voice that matched his appearance well, educated and kindly. “Well, we are all together. Now, perhaps anyone might care to explain what you’re all doing here?”

“And why should we explain anything to you, old man?” Emma fixed the doctor with a disdainful look. “You have yet to tell us who you are.”

“He is Olliard of Kell,” I said without looking away from the bespectacled man. “A physiker, traveler, and vampire hunter.”

Emma looked at me in surprise. “You know him?”

“We’re acquainted,” I said.

“As am I,” Lisette added quietly. “Thank you for saving us, master.”

“Master?” Emma blinked at the other woman, looking perplexed. “What is happening here!?”

Instead of answering my squire’s question, Olliard nodded to the cleric. “I am your master no longer, though it is good to see you well, my dear. Come up in the world, I see. Those are the robes of an adept of the Abbey of St. Layne, if I am not mistaken?”

Lisette’s cheeks reddened. “You are not mistaken. I completed my trials and undertook my final vows not long ago.”

Hendry and Emma traded dubious glances, the boy matching my squire’s nonplussed demeanor. Before we could get sidetracked, I spoke up. “I met Olliard and Lisette about two years ago, when they were traveling together. Things happened and none of it matters right now. Why are you here, doctor?”

“I think that’s obvious enough,” Olliard said dryly. “I am a hunter. I am hunting.”

“Hunting Evangeline Ark?” I asked with mild disbelief. “She’s not merely a vampire, Olliard.”

The old physiker sighed and crouched down by the fire. “That is just the thing that everyone gets wrong, Alken. They are all merely vampires, merely ghouls, and liches, and werewolves, and whatever other name we’ve given them. They are all creatures enslaved to the darkness, mastered by their base natures, no matter what finery they might drape themselves in. Evangeline is just another parasite. An infection, one that can be neutralized like any disease. All it takes is knowledge, and the right medicines.”

Spoken like a doctor, I thought. Penric adjusted his hat, subtly drawing it lower to shadow his silver eyes. Lisette looked away from the old hunter. Her demeanor seemed almost guilty.

“Wonderful,” Emma drawled. “So you’re going to slay the Queen of the Bannerlands with a fancy crossbow and some rhetoric? Oh, how lovely! We’re all saved.”

Her sarcasm could have melted snow. Lisette spoke up again in a timid voice. “Emma, he saved us—”

“We did not need saving!” Emma cut her off harshly. “Isn’t that right?”

She looked to me. I sensed the anger in my apprentice’s voice wasn’t wholly directed at the hunter, or at Lisette. Her amber eyes were hard.

That was a problem for later, and best solved in private. I spoke directly to Olliard. “The light from before, that was you?”

In response, Olliard reached into a small pack at his hip and pulled out a tiny object, a glass sphere. A dim light burned within, and there was some kind of stopper or fuse.

“Daylight in a bottle,” he told me. “I refashioned them into flares. Not quite as damaging to nosferatu as the real thing, but it does cause them some distress.”

“Alchemy,” Hendry said with a frown. “Those weapons are forbidden.”

“I have been fighting these creatures for a very long time, son.” Olliard spoke calmly. “And I am no adept. I must use the weapons available to me.”

Olliard spent some time in the continent in the past, apparently training in medicine. I realized that must have been a cover story. He’d learned more than surgery in the west.

“We have no time for this,” the doctor continued. “Evangeline’s creatures will be in these woods, hunting for us. A meagre campfire won’t protect a group this size through the night.”

“And what about the other one?” Penric asked. “Your companion?”

Olliard regarded the archer coolly. I suspected his mysterious companion hadn’t revealed themself.

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“Penric has good ears,” Hendry told the hunter. “We know they’ve been lurking nearby.”

“The puppet master,” I said. “Those marions we saw before belong to your companion.”

“Yes,” Olliard agreed. “My apprentice. He is nearby, covering us.”

Lisette blinked at her former master in surprise. “You have a new apprentice?”

He didn’t even look at her when he replied. “Of course. We might have parted ways, Lisette, but I am too old to do this work alone.”

I sensed her emotions in that moment to be complicated. Not jealous, but there was regret on the young woman’s face, a stiffness to the set of her shoulders. Reluctantly, she spoke in a softer voice. “He almost killed me and Alken in the monastery.”

“A misunderstanding,” Olliard said. “We thought Evangeline lurked inside. You are both well enough, so let us not dwell on it.”

“Not dwell on it?” Emma said through her teeth.

I had plenty of questions, but he was right about us not having time. “Then what do you suggest, doctor?”

“Alliance, for now.” Olliard studied me through his glasses, which reflected the campfire so they glowed with an orange light to obscure the eyes beneath, an almost hellish effect. “We must depart, and quickly. I will not be slaying my quarry now.”

“The enemy of my enemy?” I nodded. “Fine, then. We’ll focus on eluding the vampires, then go from there.”

“A sound plan,” he agreed.

“And that’s it?” Emma asked sharply. “We’re going to just team up with this man?”

“And why not?” Hendry piped in. “He did help us.”

“And almost killed Lisette and Alken,” she shot back. “We’re supposed to ignore that!?”

“Emma.” She turned her attention to me as I spoke her name. More calmly I said, “Enough. Olliard isn’t our enemy. This situation is complicated, none of us expected the other to be involved, and me and Lisette got caught in the crossfire. Let’s focus, alright?”

Her nostrils flared, but she nodded.

Why was she so angry? Emma could have a temper, but this wasn’t like her. I usually expected her to be level-headed, even more than me at times.

Olliard watched the scene impassively. “Well then, if there’s nothing else to get off our chests?”

“Let’s move,” I agreed.

We mounted up. Olliard lit a lantern and led us to the road, the same one we’d used to cross into the Bannerlands. Waiting for us was a large cart pulled by an ugly chimera with a hog’s head and bristling gray fur.

Lisette gasped with delight. “You still have Brume!”

Olliard smiled, his dour manner fading a touch. “Of course. I’m certain the old girl will outlive me.”

The boar, a common breed of animal and not a knightly beast like my group’s mounts, snuffled in Lisette’s direction and let out a happy grunt at the familiar scent. It was huge, sported a mane of hair that obscured its eyes like a shaggy dog, and possessed a pair of curling tusks. A harness tied it to the cart, loaded with gear, and with that gear sat a young man.

He looked close to Emma’s age, a boy not yet twenty. He dressed in common clothes, with a simple brown vest over a baggy shirt and baggy pants. His skin was dark, a dusky shade of brown, and despite his apparent youth his hair bore the color of chimney ash. It framed his gaunt face in an unkempt mop, nearly touching his shoulders. He had one arm propped on a knee as he rested on a pile of bags, watching us with large, dark eyes that reminded me of people I’d seen in refugee trains after wars — unblinking, haunted, the light in them snuffed out.

“You brought them with you?” He asked Olliard without preamble. His voice held a distinct rasp, emerging from dry lips as an almost ghostly creak, like he recovered from some illness or shot his voice shouting.

“Yes,” Olliard said brusquely as he moved to the cart’s bench. “We’re going. Is anything close?”

The youth held two objects in his hands. Wooden crosses, their centers bound in cord. He lifted them both to either side of his head, as though listening to them. His gaze went out of focus.

“There are vampires in the woods,” the boy said. “They’re searching for us.”

“I could have told us that without fancy talismans,” Emma grumbled behind me. I shot her a warning look and she shrugged, pretending to scan the forest.

“Things will get worse if Evangeline brings in her own guard,” I told Olliard. “We need to make distance.”

The doctor nodded, looking troubled. I noticed the puppeteer boy was staring at me.

This boy could have killed you. The thought came suddenly, and I found myself going more on guard.

“Carus?” Olliard asked when the boy kept staring at me

Carus blinked and turned his attention to the doctor. “Yes, master.”

He slid into the driver’s bench then, taking Brume’s reins. Olliard rested his crossbow in his lap as he took a seat next to his apprentice.

“You should have your archer get in my cart,” Olliard told me. “He’ll be more use that way.”

I nodded, and ordered both Penric and Lisette to climb into the vehicle. That would allow Hendry and Emma more freedom on their mounts, and give the bowman and the cleric more space to work their crafts. The cart sported several alchemical lanterns hung from posts, which would burn brightly for hours to illuminate our path.

With that, our impromptu fellowship started moving down the forest road. My eyes strayed to the night sky, watching for any sign of danger as I pulled Morgause up alongside the doctor.

“Evangeline has a flying chariot,” I said. “The woods are dense here, but if we’re caught in open ground…”

“She’ll get more of this,” he told me as he produced another of his bottled sunlight, what he’d referred to as a flare. “And I have deadlier toys besides.”

“I didn’t know you were an alchemist,” I commented.

Olliard shrugged as he started loading his flare into the crossbow. It sported a tube instead of the typical groove for a bolt, probably specially designed for the ammunition he used. “A novice, at best. I can make crude weapons to fight various preternatural creatures, but I wouldn’t claim to be a true alchemist. In the continent, that title holds weight.”

The puppeteer boy, Carus, was staring at me again, this time with a sidelong look. He wasn’t trying to be subtle about it, and the attention of those dead eyes made my skin itch.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we moved.

“We need to find hallowed ground.” Olliard had to raise his voice as the cart rumbled over the rough trail. “There’s a town to the north of here, some miles away. We can reach it by morning, but it’s going to be a long night!”

“We’ve got company,” Penric said from the back of the cart. “Three of them, keeping pace with us to the left.”

I glanced to the left, but saw nothing in the trees. The dyghoul’s senses were better than mine. On a hunch, I turned my attention upward, to the gray sphere painting itself across the firmament. There, far above — so far it seemed little more than a tiny smudge against the face of the moon — something flew overhead.

“Evangeline,” I said and pointed to the spot.

Olliard took the news in with implacable calm. “Carus, if you would?”

“Yes, master.” The boy also seemed calm despite the situation. Penric began to string an arrow, the glint of silver beneath the brim of his hat fixed on the trees.

“What’s the plan?” Hendry asked from where he rode behind the cart. “They could harry us all night, exhaust us before we get even close to safety.”

“That will be difficult for them soon,” Olliard muttered. “It’s about to get uncomfortable. That archer of yours is undead, isn’t he?”

I stared at him in surprised. Olliard wasn’t a fool, but Penric’s nature was relatively subtle.

Olliard kept his attention forward. He’d taken the reins from his apprentice while the boy fidgeted with his little crosses. “There are blankets in the back. I would suggest you have him cover himself.”

No use arguing. “Penric.”

The dyghoul shot an arrow into the trees. Somewhere in the near distance, something let out a scream. “Yes, boss?”

“Do what the doctor says.”

“I’ll let you know when it’s safe,” Lisette promised him.

Penric laid his longbow on his lap and Lisette helped cover him. Carus, meanwhile, stretched both of his skinny arms to the sky. He mumbled something incoherent, swaying drunkenly as the cart hit a bump in the road.

I felt a shiver of power in the night air, and then something crawled out from under the cart. Lisette let out a muted gasp of horror. It was a nightmarish thing, even more so than the centipede from the monastery. It had an enormous head, a flat devil mask carved of wood and painted red, with a body like some cross between a scarab beetle and a mantis with long scything blades for its forelimbs.

I hadn’t sensed it hiding right beneath the vehicle, but now it crawled up onto the back of the wagon it exuded threat. As Carus muttered and made subtle movements with his crosses, the marion lifted its grinning mask upward. Beneath its bulk, smaller limbs clutched a crossbow similar to the one Olliard used, only much larger. More like a small ballista than a crossbow. An iron bolt was fitted into the weapon, with string coiled around the barrel.

Without warning, it fired. The weapon produced a solid-sounding clap of noise as its mechanisms flexed, and the bolt sailed skyward. The barrel began to spin, producing a loud whirring sound. The rope remained attached to the missile, its length unspooling with rapid speed as the bolt went higher, higher, soaring into the night sky.

There’s no way it’ll reach Evangeline, I thought. She must have been more than half a mile up.

But that wasn’t Olliard’s intention. When the missile reached the apex of its ascent, I heard a distant pop and a kite erupted from it. The rope went taut and the cart jerked as the kite caught the wind, very similar to how Vicar had whisked us from my brief duel with Evangeline earlier.

“Moment of truth!” Olliard shouted.

Seconds passed. I could hear movement in the trees, catch shapes flitting from cover to cover as the nocturnal eyes of our pursuers glinted in the dark. My hand tightened on my axe’s grip, ready for them to attack.

Which was when the kite erupted with light. A miniature sun came to life above the road, chasing away the darkness, sending a flash of brilliance over the trees. It was bright enough I had to throw an arm up to shield my eyes.

Another flare, only this one didn’t seem to slowly fizzle out like the alchemical weapon Olliard used before. Like our own guardian star, it followed behind the cart as the rope pulled it along, hanging a hundred feet up and shining over the forest.

In the trees, the vampires let out screeches of distress. I couldn’t see Evangeline beyond the flare, but imagined she wasn’t enjoying it either. I felt an involuntary grin start to tug at the corner of my mouth.

“Good show!” Olliard cried out. “Those only work once out of every five times!”

“You trusted our escape to something that only works a fifth of the time!?” Emma spat at the old hunter in outrage.

I noted that Lisette looked resigned, like she’d experienced this kind of thing before. Probably she had, back when it was her and Olliard against all the world’s evil. Hendry looked awed. Carus continued to work his controllers, probably directing other puppets out of our sight. The devil-mask clung to the back of the cart, keeping the rope and shining kite connected.

What stops the flare from burning the kite? I wondered. But I was more interested in getting us away than solving our ally’s mysteries.

“How long?” I asked Olliard.

“Perhaps an hour,” he said. “But it will burn any vampire that comes within its radius. The alchemist who made it for me used blessed gold in the mixture, from this land. Few things better for it in all the world!”

That would give us some time, at least. Yet, something told me Evangeline would not give up, not let us go until dawn came and forced her back into hiding. That look she’d given me at the end, when I’d nearly taken her head as we fought under the moon…

Hate is a powerful motivator, but fear is far stronger in my experience. She would have me dead, one way or another, and she had plenty of minions to throw at us.

“Olliard,” I said as we tore down the road at speed. “Were you the one Evangeline intended to meet at Fife, the one she set that trap for?”

The hunter shook his head. “No! I thought it was you!”

Troubled, I fell silent. We’d made it out of the death trap of Fife, barely, but all I’d earned for the trouble were more questions. Who did Evangeline intend to meet at the village, this other party that compelled her to slaughter an entire community as a security measure against them? Whoever it was, they hadn’t shown up before the night’s drama played out. Did it have anything to do with the Briar King, and with Rysanthe? Did Olliard have more information that could help me move forward?

More and more questions. I did know one thing, however. Something was at play in the Banner, something my instincts told me had to be just as dire as the events in Osheim the past winter. Powers were moving around this country, powers far more dangerous than Evangeline Ark.

I knew this, because whoever or whatever she’d tried to ambush here, the vampire queen was scared of them.

“What’s the plan now?” Emma asked. “We bought ourselves an hour, but the night is still fresh. Do we run ourselves into the ground? The dead don’t tire.”

Olliard wasn’t quick with a reply, which told me he was probably taking this one step at a time. He’d planned to make his move and then flee into the night, but instead revealed himself to save us.

“Brume can’t run all night,” he admitted to me.

“She won’t have to,” I said. “I have a place we can go. It’ll be dangerous on its own, but Evangeline Ark won’t follow us there.”

I slipped my hand into the folds of my cloak and pulled out a small item. It had risks itself, this route, but I needed safety and a fresh lead. There would be no better place to find both in a pinch.

I made a fist around the ancient bronze coin, and spurred the group into the night.