Opening: Chapter One

The halo of the knight Nevalle's blonde hair, dampened with rain, appeared from beneath a drenched hood as his eyes rose to the canopy of trees above. His lips fell into a disillusioned frown, and a hand lifted, halting the cavalcade in his wake. The clamor of sodden hooves and the rustle of wet cloaks subsided. Nevalle's heels pressed his steed's side from deep in the stirrups; his palomino stallion cantered the length of the convoy and returned to its center. An ebony-haired man, scarred from the war against the King of Shadows and freshly knighted as one of the Neverwinter Nine, leaned in the seat of his saddle towards his superior.

"How does she fare, Casavir?" Nevalle asked of him.

"She lives still, to my dismay." He responded. Nevalle glanced over Casavir's broad, armored shoulder at the white-cloaked figure on the opposite side. Grey-skinned hands, tipped in nails studded with glass crystals, were bound to the pommel of her mare's saddle, her head bowed so the white hood draped over her face. Nevalle's charge, his prisoner, was his most complicated. An Outsider, by title of his people, guilty she may have been of murder yet in her realm, justice was not measured in the same standards. Casavir once more faced Nevalle, eyes sharpened and fearsome. Indeed, too there were the personal ties to the trial, lives left ruined in the wake of the demon that demanded consideration. It was in this that Casavir brokenly added, "I suggest we pause not for this… lady's health and continue on to Neverwinter."

Nevalle's head shook, rain thrust from him by the thrash of his cloak. His eyes ventured to the woman, tracing the divots in the cloak where her horns protruded from her skull and spiraled upwards in dual rose helixes. It was as if her hands ran yet with the blood of the innocents, as if her sleeves still yet were stained with the lost lives, taken by her. And yet she was an echo of a killer, frail and feminine, her grace clear in her faultless posture. She nearly would have been a woman. He finally said to Casavir, "That we will speak of later. Now, be cautious of her."

"Think you I wish to escape?"

The knights' breaths became trapped in the hollow of their throats. She, the Archdemon, had spoken in voice as smooth and poisonous in sound as merlot was in taste. The sound split the hiss of water falling against the leaves of the trees. Her head quavered, the hood replacing itself upon her shoulders. Her resplendent face was revealed: grey, tattooed with pink stripes along the softly pronounced bones of her cheek. Above them eyes pale and pink as the early dawn arisen masked all emotion, though doubtless they pierced as if swords splaying human hearts on their iron blades. Harrowing was she more that lovely, and in this beauty, Casavir dipped his chin in descent, teeth grinding in fury at her, in recollection of the beauty hers consumed.

Witnessing this, the demon instead looked to Nevalle. His mouth had hardened into a powerful line, hands taut on his reigns. He said, "I know you wouldn't act so brash, and for that matter, daft, Axarthys Saintrowe."

"No more have I the motivation to slay the innocents as once I did." She replied, stare focused momentarily upon Casavir. The paladin had lain to rest his brow in the palm of his gloved hand, clenching it. His teeth were bared and gritted in an expression that danced the verge between fury and sorrow.

"Casavir." Nevalle ordered. The paladin's attention was captured, and his head rose. His eyes opened, wet at their rims with unshed tears. Nevalle said, "We continue to Neverwinter, and hope to arrive their on the morrow. We will not pause save to sleep this night. This I swear. Regain composure and assure this demon does nothing suspicious in your watch. Take solace in your control of this… prisoner."

"We delay justice in stopping." Casavir managed to protest.

"And we deny many good men a well-deserved sleep for sake of a criminal should we continue." Nevalle consoled, "You need to rest, Casavir. It is only one night. Establish camp and I will take the prisoner."

"Yes, sir." He forcibly replied.

-

The stag dashed through the wood, its golden coat sparkling in splashes of light and rain cast down from the canopy of trees above. Fallen branches were cleared in leaps of its cloven hooves in its spree. His blackened eyes wide, scoping the path ahead, he dove beneath the brush atop a knoll, descending the hill on the opposite side in a single sweep of svelte legs against wet leaves and underbrush. His escapade had been victorious, and emerging from the brush unscathed, the stag had left his pursuer far in the wake of his trail.

The man halted, bow lowered, hands lingering on the fletching of his arrow. He was perched up on a rock, black leather boots poised on the slick surface to pounce should his prey return, but his patience was not so rewarded. A growl leaked past the gates of his lips as he surrendered his post, stepping from it to crush the moss under his feet beneath the heels of his boots. His arrow replaced in his quiver, bow slung over a curved, strapping shoulder, he cocked his head and listened to the relative quiet of the forest and the murmur of the falling rain. Determination fed the swiftness of his second attempt at the hunt. He should not have been so reckless as to have pursued the last deer on foot, he rebuked.

Scaling a tree, he readied himself on a branch, setting the knock of an arrow against the bowstring. His eyes rose, maple in color, though not nearly as saccharine, so biting their gaze was. Scanning the wood, he sought the fleeting shuffle of cloven hooves across the wood. No deer made themselves apparent. Wrinkling his nose and breathing in the scent of the forest, he found in his nostrils the stench of a fire burning, a distant echo of voices and the crackle of a fire beckoning his ears to draw nearer to listen. A human encampment, he noted. No deer, shy as they were, would approach now.

Cursing, he crawled from his post and began to trace the noises, a hand instinctually embracing the hilt of a long sword in a scabbard at his side. Sidling past evergreen brush and bushes, he knelt in the guise of leaves and around the trunk of a tree to be met with the sight of knights. The imaginary stench of righteousness assaulted his nose. A silent snarl. The Nine and their squires were setting camp, presumably for the night's time. Familiar and hated faces hastened to hammer stakes into the earth, puncturing Mother Earth's mossy flesh to create shelter. Casavir and Sand's existence among their number had the hunter's hand shuddering on his weapon, revolted with their compliance to serve Neverwinter for a pocket like a mouth gluttonously gorging itself on gold and an empty title, as if to sell their souls in subterfuge of what was moral and chivalrous.

"Tether the prisoner beside the fire, over there, against the tree. See to it that she has water." He heard Nevalle order. From the horses two guards dismounted and carried the woman, their arms looped around hers. Nevalle took a handful of her hood and removed it, lifting her chin with his finger, "And see to it she is fed well. Her cheeks are gaunt and her skin grows pale."

The hunter knew her.

"Neither hunger nor thirst plagues me, though if it is in blindness on which you insist to act, have not me stop you." The woman replied to the knight. Her face turned, suddenly recognized in its full. Horns shone as if glass atop her brow, their pinkness bled into the circles of her eyes. Unmistakable was she, and in her appearance and in the smoothness of her velvet voice the hunter clamored to his feet, bolting deep into the wood as breaths quickened. He had to reach her, to see her, to free her. If only the knights would depart for slumber, leaving her to her loneliness.

The hunter scarcely was patient. But for her sake, he was all he never was.

-

Nevalle knelt at the ground of his tent, etching patterns into the earth with a lengthy twig. Any thoughtless activity was something to substitute for his dwelling on the prisoner. How would the Nine punish her? Where could a tanar'ri, Archdemon to a demonic host and freshly exalted as a hero of the Blood Wars, be withheld without her devilish peers' knowing? Could a planar being be subject to mortal, human laws? What divine involvement would shatter the judicial order of Neverwinter should she, Axarthys Saintrowe, be convicted in such manner as to infuriate gods of her realm? Lord Nasher had warned him of the difficulty of his duty. Nevalle had not foreseen his situation would have been akin to crossing a canyon over a single braid of rope to act as a bridge.

At any second, with any action, Nevalle could fall. Fall from grace, from his position, from life itself. Politics, politics, and he, though noble and well enough in the social sect, required insight from a cleverer source. Thus, from the fabric-fold of his tent door, a versed moon elf sidled about the perimeter of the tent to sit cross-legged at Nevalle's side.

"I do believe the last this happened was three years ago, when you called on me to defend that charmingly… impervious Knight Captain of yours. Now that she is dead and you have the supposed murderer within the very glade we sit in, allow me to take a most wild stab at why you would summon me, a most humble magician, to your tent." Sand leered, "You again call me to a task worthy of my talents that couldn't be more of a problem if you mixed in a bucket-full of rowdy Luskans fresh from Ember. Consult away, my liege. We have all night to chat before Casavir awakens and weeps that the Knight Captain's murderer's execution can no more be delayed."

Nevalle dropped the twig into the tracing of dirt, leaning atop his elbows to frown, "This is no state of affairs to mock, Sand. There are so many elements to this trial, if we can even call it such, that we have yet to resolve."

"Like what?"

"She is an Archdemon, so we can't execute her. She is not even worldly; she comes from the Abyssal plane. She is the handmaiden warrior of wicked gods and a demon lord. What we deal in here is not simple human affairs, Sand, and that is why I need your advising. We tamper with trying to punish the actions of a being not ruled by the laws of our lands. Neverwinter seeks retribution for the death of their hero, but we can't let them have it, not without digging ourselves an even deeper grave." Nevalle sighed, "And it has been three years' time. We risk reviving memories best left forgotten for the sake of all who traveled with the Knight Captain."

"Well, well. Nasher does seem to get pinned into some intriguing corners. And we thought after Luskan fled and the King of Shadows was killed all in Neverwinter would be jubilant and blissful. I have a suggestion- why don't we just leave her in the woods here, return to Neverwinter and say a score of succubi made off with her?" Sand responded.

"I could not so shirk my duties. I believe in the rationality of our government, and that though pressing, no task they hand to us is unfeasible. Some are simply more trying than others. We need only be cautious and reverent of the otherworldly forces we tamper with." Nevalle said. Sand's eyes rolled in their sockets, his lips twisted in aggravation.

"Seeing as you have all this figured out, I'll be leaving." He said.

"Sand, I know how to go about justice. It is the justice we deal I am unsure of." Nevalle said, "And though I make justice my career, there are some matters in which having a political chameleon such as you is necessary. How do I please the warriors of Crossroad Keep while remaining unnoticed by the Abyssal elite?"

"Very well. I can tell you this very moment killing her would be outrageous. You'd do better defenestrating yourself from Nasher's palace. Death is far from subtle." Sand replied, "And conversely, death is the only equivalent to her actions against the Knight Captain, and the only form of closure Neverwinter will be willing to accept. So, combine the two, and you have yourself-"

"-A rather impossible situation."

"You said yourself Nasher would not expect the impossible of you. If death is all that will quench Neverwinter's thirst for justice, than you must give them death. And if death will have the demon lords breathing fire down your trousers, assure that it doesn't appear you directly caused her demise."

"You suggest magic or poison, then?" Nevalle asked, mouth straightened into a quizzical line. Sand smiled, finger wagging.

"Demons can smell magic and poison a hundred leagues away. So what kills that is not human and not magic? Disease." Sand said, "If only Maugrim still lived to inflict the Wailing Death on her. Then we'd be in a perfect position."

"She would unnecessarily suffer for weeks, months before dying." Nevalle uttered.

"Either her or the whole of Neverwinter if the demon lords chose to take action." Sand noted, "Sicken her, exile her, and soon your guilt will depart. Besides, she would pass to the Abyssal planes once more, her native home. It's not as if she would be forever erased from existence. And in the Abyss, who would have her tale of her story of death by the hand of Neverwinter? On the otherworldly planes, the demons and devils are so consumed by the Blood Wars that they have no time for her private suffering."

Nevalle gnawed on the inside of his cheek, rubbing his brow. Indeed, should he take heed to Sand's words and enact the plan, surely the imaginary defendants and plaintiffs in the case for the life of Axarthys Saintrowe would be satisfied. But at the price of his morality, was it worth allowing a woman- demon or human regardless- to wither? Could he gaze into her dying eyes, red and dry and sagging at the lids in exhaustion from illness, and not see the shame for doing unto another being such a punishment?

"I will consider your words, Sand. Know that this is difficult for me." He said, "You are dismissed."

When the elf departed, Nevalle stretched out on the linens of his bedroll, looking up at the night sky through the hole in the fabric where the tent met at its highest peak. He had killed many a time, from beasts and goblins to baatezu and fellow humans alike. What stayed his hand for Axarthys Saintrowe? The brutality of his willingness to kill her by disease? Or was that only the sway her temptress's eyes held over his captive soul?

He drifted to sleep. He didn't want to consider it.

Within a day and half's time, he could no longer be so ignorant. Arrived in Neverwinter, assembled in the throne room the Neverwinter Nine reposed in white ivory chairs, Lord Nasher in his polished silver at their head atop his throne. At their center, the crumpled heap of pink silk gown that was Axarthys Saintrowe imprisoned in a circle of runes bound by clerical magic. All of the assembly watched her curiously, as if she would writhe in the same manner as possessed humans even in her strictly demonic form. All were silent, as if the summit was and exorcism and not a meeting of the state of Neverwinter. As if Tyr's divinity would surge through the tanar'ri, and she would babble in forgotten tongues and ramble obscenities and persist that her host body she would not escape through godly measures.

The truth was less theatric. Instead, sprawled cross the stone floors, fingernails rapping on the ground in endlessly repeated rhythms, she resembled some enchantingly beautiful nymph displayed for the enjoyment of the court, like some fanciful caged bird. In either case, she captivated her audience, leaving them rapt in the wake of her horrific, evocative splendor. It took their lord Nasher's vehemence to initiate their assembly, his voice booming, "You bring this tanar'ri before me as the accused in the murder of the Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep? Yet you know I am unable to rule on the guilt or innocence of those not of Neverwinter, and certainly not of those of another plane."

"If I may, milord." Casavir spoke. Nasher nodded in acknowledgement, and the paladin stood. Freshly knighted into the Nine, garbed in the blues of their order with the bleeding eye signet plastered cross it, he arose from his seat, addressing the assembly and Nasher, "Once, Neverwinter withheld one of the Githzerai, Zhjaeve, before she was seen as to be not a threat. I see no wrongdoing in interfering with the justice of this demon if she has interfered in our affairs, and during times of war, no less."

"We deal not with a single, potentially hostile race but with demon lords and deities." Nevalle countered, "I urge discretion. It was in the name of the Blood Wars that Axarthys Saintrowe slew the Knight Captain, and it is no far stretch to imagine what would happen if we in turn killed her."

"You are merciful because you did not know what was lost when the Knight Captain was killed, Nevalle." Casavir growled.

"I am not merciful, I am cautious, and in the name of Neverwinter." He defended, voice echoing rebuke.

"And do not you think the Knight Captain fought in the name of Neverwinter? Greater was she a hero of this land than you; she was our savior and our friend, our leader and our confidante. She bled for us at Crossroad Keep, she died for us on the very march to the King of Shadow's realm at the hands of the demon that lies before us this very instant, and you will find mercy in your heart for her soul? What softness of heart elevated you to the forefront of this order?" Casavir snapped.

"You would bring my character under question, after you turned against Neverwinter and prowled the mountains instigating orcs?" Nevalle retorted.

"Casavir, Nevalle, be silent!" Nasher boomed. The knights recoiled, Casavir sinking into the seat of his chair once more, shoulder raised and back sunk into a poised, leonine battle pose silent and telling. Nevalle leaned into his seat, arms crossed about his chest, chin lifted and mouth frowning in distaste. Nasher released a long, audible breath, stating, "We have all lost a dear and beloved ally, Casavir, and we all, including Sir Nevalle, seek justice. I too agree with discreet punishment, but do not take discreet to mean lenient. That is why we are assembled, to decide on a punishment befitting of these standards."

"Let us speak to the tanar'ri," One of the nine suggested, "And determine our conclusion when the action is recounted through the lips of the accused."

Nasher nodded, "I concur. Tell us, demon, how the Knight Captain interfered with the Blood Wars as you claim. Why did you murder her?"

"Is it murder to kill to the sound of the trumpets of war?" She called.

"Then you admit that she is dead because of her involvement in the Blood Wars. What was this involvement? Were you ordered to kill her?" Nasher inquired. The tanar'ri twisted her body, contorted into a seated stance from where she lay strewn on the floor.

"Comprehend nothing you do of hell." She answered in a lengthened hiss, "If it is ignorance you insist upon, I shall indulge you to a direct reply. Dead lays your Knight Captain because she slew the arch-succubus Blooden, agent of the Abyss. My superiors unnamed ordered it of me. Stole from us the Knight Captain did our eyes upon this plane, leaving us blinded where demons and devils alike mingle."

"Then it was your duty?" Nasher asked. Her lips parted, laughter brewing in the back of her mouth, departing her lips as a silken, silver-tongued, chocolate sound.

"A duty? If a duty is something of pleasure, her death was a duty." She said. Casavir sat at the edge of his chair, leaning inward with hands clenched upon the armrests in irate fists at her words.

"She reveled in it, Lord Nasher, she enjoyed taking the life of our Knight Captain! How could you not punish that foul crime to the fullest extent? How could not make her suffer for doing that to her?!" He bounded to his feet, "I witnessed the death of the Knight Captain, I saw this tanar'ri carve the flesh from our beloved hero's torso, I saw-"

"Casavir-"

"I watched her take her by the throat and cut her organs from within her! I watched the Knight Captain as she was impaled upon this demon's blade! I tried so hard to in turn kill this wretched fiend, and she disappeared, and there was blood, blood everywhere, and she lay there, and she died in my arms, and I was damned to see her pass from this world!" He cried out.

"Casavir, calm yourself." Nasher ordered, "Who else saw the Knight Captain die to act as witness?"

"The others were far behind, my lord." Sand answered in proxy from the room's corner, bending against the wall casually, "We'd gotten ambushed by skeletal undead. But Casavir had followed ahead with the Knight Captain to defend her, so he was all there was to see the death."

"Then there was no other." Nasher said.

"No. No, there had to have been another." Nevalle uttered.

"You weren't even there, Nevalle." Casavir barked.

He shook his head, explaining, "Someone had to have instructed the forces of the stronghold not to attack this tanar'ri for her to seamlessly enter and kill the Knight Captain. Someone could have accompanied her, thus participating in the murder. But Garius, Garius would have waited to kill the Knight Captain when she reached him. There was the ranger, the one who fled with Garius. Bishop. Do you know that name, Axarthys?"

Arrogant and superior as her expression was, it was reduced to a sorrowful, lost countenance when the name resounded in the chamber. She whispered, "He had naught to do with this."

"Then you know him?" Nevalle inquired. She was silent, head bowed against her chest with eyes closed. Nevalle turned momentarily to Nasher, saying, "Let me speak to her alone, later. I won't press her any further now. Let us dwell on what we have learned as of yet and be satisfied."

"Then you chose to delay justice once more." Casavir said.

"It will be served. Patience is the price we must pay for closure." Nasher assured, "Now Nevalle, I give you authority over this tanar'ri. Find what you will from her. We will reconvene on the morrow."

-

At the lilting toll of the distant bells of midnight, Nevalle settled at his desk. A knock at the door, the entry of two guards carrying the slight body of the accused tanar'ri. In as if a ceremonial, ritual quiet they settled her to the carpeted floor of the room, abandoning her to their captain. She no longer strained on the arms of her captors, struggled for freedom. She folded her legs properly beneath her with head kept proudly escalated in the angle of its neck. There was a lengthy silence between them. It was her that shattered it.

"You of all your peers are the only one who referred to me by name today." She said. He set down a quill, watching her stare up towards him. Her eyes did not blink. Within the privacy of his thoughts, he shivered.

"It is a beautiful name." He offered, "Not many of your kind have that, or any name."

"You will find I am more human in comparison to all my brethren, and I am thankful you appreciate my sophistication and consider me accordingly." She answered, "No one treats me as if human save you."

"Hence why I can converse with you so smoothly." He said, turning his chair to face her evenly, "And that is good, considering that we have a great deal to speak of concerning the murder of the Knight Captain."

"You wish me to confirm the ranger Bishop was an accomplice in the murder of your hero? To silence the paladin Casavir, whose presence my stomach churns in. To hush the mewled tears shed by Sand, and by Neeshka, and by Khelgar, Elanee, Grobnar, and her uncle, Duncan Farlong?"

"You are well acquainted with your victim's allies." Nevalle noted.

"Complained to I was of all of them by Bishop." She smiled fondly, "Indeed, I knew him. Long have I known him, in truth, well before I was drafted into the Blood Wars and…what seems like, like eons before I became entangled in your earthly politics."

"And was Bishop a part of the plot to assassinate the Knight Captain?"

She shook her head, snowy tresses loose from their twisted bun tumbling about her shoulders in the motion. Her eyes glimmered as if ripples on the surface of pink water. Axarthys murmured, "No. I will not deceive you when I say that he was present there, and in his presence I was relieved. It had been so long since last I had seen him. But he did not aid me, only in support, and such action is to be expected of the closeness we have long shared."

"Then you have known him for a long time." He concluded.

"Our story, extends far from the reaches of the past." She answered.

"Then take me there." He replied.

-

Author's Notes:

If you noticed, the Knight Captain isn't named. This is so you can feel more a part of the story, and that the character is your own PC. Just a clarification. Also, the following chapter will be the prologue. It was intentional that chapter one and it were switched for better literary flow. Additionally, I may not update due to a short vacation I'll be leaving for. But I'm not disappearing, I promise. I also want to take the opportunity to encourage your criticism and thoughts. They propel my story and inspire me lots!

Hope you enjoyed and peace out, dolls

-Valah